


St. Elmo's Fire and Other Weird Things That Happen in Space

by atmospherique



Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Frequent Swearing, Gen, Nonbinary Character, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Religious Themes, average people making average to poor decisions, brief fat shaming, mentions of child death, tried to write a suspense/mystery but idk how to do that, whodunit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:40:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27674824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atmospherique/pseuds/atmospherique
Summary: Lt. Banai (Black) is mostly just good for shooting people, looking intimidating and watching the feed in sec with a mug of hot tea and a heart full of stale regrets. The worst they've seen on this kind of job is crew members stealing pain killers out of med and getting in fights over bunk space. Unfortunately, this time around, the crew of the Skeld can't seem to stop dying, and Banai really doesn't want to be the person who has to solve that particular problem.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> shoutout to [Silvermoonphantom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daitoshi/pseuds/Silvermoonphantom) for getting me into this game and writing a fanfic for it which made me want to write something that turned out to be COMPLETELY different. please read their work, too, though :) [Connections and Correlations](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26788780/chapters/65350207) is a DELIGHT. (also shoutout to Silver for getting me into fanfic in the first place?? honestly, just shoutout to them in general.)
> 
> CAST:
> 
> Lt. Banai - BLACK, security, they/them  
> Mr. Bosques - BLUE, communication, he/him  
> Dr. Gbeho - GREEN, science, she/her  
> Mr. Oe - ORANGE, engineer, he/him  
> Dr. Praga - PURPLE, medic, they/them  
> Mr. Roy - RED, navigation, he/him  
> Dr. Yarrow - YELLOW, psychiatrist, she/her  
> Capt. Wei - WHITE, captain, they/them

On the corner of ~~Orange~~ Mr. Oe’s legal pad:

THREE IMMUTABLE FACTS

1 there has never been a decent functional ship in MIRAfleet. not ever. not once

2 ~~Talisman~~ suxx fascist eggs

^nsps*

3 space is fucking weird

*in blue ink, crammed uncomfortably between ‘Talisman’ and ‘suxx’ and ‘fucking’

Fact 1 is personified in the rumble of the mechanical (electrical? particle? spiritual??) somethings that shift into place as Banai primes the shields for the third time since departure. “Just tap here on the display, then here, yeah, it’s that simple,” ~~Orange~~ Oe told them.

Banai finishes the input, and the walls seem to hum louder. Everything hums so loud. All the time, humming, humming. Banai rubs at their brow. The sound’s usually easy to ignore. Until it changes. Softer, louder; it’s in their head now.

“Why does this require human input? Couldn’t it be automated?” they asked when the orange-tag engineer introduced them to the shields chamber.

Oe shrugged. “MIRA likes to keep us on our toes.”

“By putting our lives at unnecessary risk?”

“By making us work for that bread. They hate thinking we’re up here twiddling our thumbs while the ship does all the work.”

“Inefficient.” It makes no sense.

He shrugged again. “It’s annoying, but you’re gonna be glad to have something to do in a few days. Trust me, it’s boring as hell up in here.”

Inefficient. Inefficient. Upsetting.

-

Fact 2 is circled in fat black pencil. Oe has made no effort to hide his distaste for Banai’s organization. In fact, he’s very vocal about it. Black-tag security roles are what he calls ‘a barely justified sin.’

MIRA cycles through different security options (AltaSec; Talisman; Red Haven, Ltd.; etc.) every few years. The ups and downs of each partnership are inscrutable to Banai. Banai is a tough turned soldier turned merc turned glorified babysitter. They don’t care what financial and interpersonal issues have led to the current allyship between MIRA and their own company; they just want to get paid the right amount on time.

Something about this bothers Mr. Oe.

That humming, though.

Banai would rather just comm ~~Orange~~ Oe and head back to security where their tea is cooling, but the damn network on this damn ship has been down for days now. Why? Oe says he’s looking into it. Inefficient, sloppy.

The humming persists as Banai’s boots tap down the hallway. Sad rhythms mixing together.

At the comms station, Blue—Bosques, his name is Bosques—

(Banai made a point of acquainting themself with the crew thoroughly—though with an expected measure of detached distance—upon their assignment to _the Skeld_. The MIRA employees quickly revealed, however, their quirk of addressing and referring to each other by tag color. Initially, Banai found this distasteful, disrespectful, but it’s been seeping into their stream of consciousness lately. And it has its appeal. No names, no attachment, no accidental mispronunciations; just getting paid the right amount _on time_.)

Mr. Bosques is doing crosswords in comms. His headset is around his neck, and he’s tapping the eraser of his pencil against his chin. He has a library of crossword books. Once he finishes one, he erases all the answers carefully so he can do them again later. “I forget most of the clues by the time I get back around,” he explained as Banai watched him scrub a page clean one day cycle. They were in the cafeteria. There were eraser shavings in Bosques’s freeze dried eggs. “Most of them, anyways. I guess I’ll buy some new ones when I finally get planetside. How long since you been home?”

Banai nods to him as they pass the entrance to comms, but he doesn’t look up.

Bosques is clueless about the network issues, too. “It’s the individual receivers,” he insisted at the first all-crew meeting (eight members seated around one of the cafeteria tables). “The software’s fine, and the network’s running, but the devices just aren’t talking.”

“So all the units malfunctioned simultaneously? Fucking come on.”

“Language, Mr. Oe,” the captain said.

Oe rolled his eyes.

Bosques said, “I passed the issue onto HQ. The big q-comm is functioning just fine, by the way. But HQ said they’ll advise when they have time to sort through the data burst I sent.”

“ETA on a reply?” the captain asked.

“Uh, like seventy-two hours.” Bosques smiled sheepishly. It’s his most typical smile.

(Nearly a hundred hours later and still no word back. Bosques transmits the standard check-in every twelve hours. HQ shoots back a ‘Received.’)

“Shit,” Oe said.

“They’re having a lot of issues like this. Apparently.”

“So, faulty products on MIRA’s end?” Dr. Praga (MD) offered.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” ~~Red~~ Mr. Roy muttered.

The captain closed their eyes. “Internal comms are non-essential.” They sighed. “There’s the alarm system in the caf in case of emergency and the PA system. Otherwise, get up and find someone if you need them, stretch your legs. It’s important to maintain a good exercise regimen in transit, so hopefully this will be habit-forming for some of you.” They looked pointedly at Bosques and Roy.

Bosques was oblivious, but the red-tag navigator tore open another cookie package just as pointedly. Banai thought it was a cheap shot and logged it away as fodder for later. Banai was already enumerating complaints that first cycle after departure. They’re still enumerating. Eventually perhaps, one of the crew will prove to be worth unloading on. It won’t be the captain. Capt. Wei is a professional veneer over a gut full of bitterness.

The captain didn’t blink as Roy, eyebrows raised challengingly, bit into his cookie. Instead, they turned back to the rest of the crew with their eyes-on-everyone style. “There’s a chance HQ will be delayed—” several nodding heads at this “—so I’ll ask you, Mr. Oe, to please give everyone’s personal receiver an inspection in the meantime.”

“Okay, I’ll poke around when I get a chance, but my to-do list is pretty full already.”

“At your convenience. Dismissed.”

The lights are on in the storage bay. Drs. Yarrow (PsyD) and Gbeho (PhD) are having a chat between a few of the crates. Gossip, judging by the way they smile at Banai. It can’t be anything too brutal or demeaning, at least, since ~~Purple~~ Praga isn’t present.

“All’s well, lieutenant?” Yarrow asks.

“Perfectly.”

Gbeho’s smile goes gentle.

Gbeho knocked Banai out of the position of newbie. She’s a temporary fixture. Admittedly—aside from the captain and Red and Blue—no one really expects to be on _the Skeld_ for more than a few runs before getting scrambled to other assignments, but Dr. Gbeho is more passenger than crew. One of MIRA’s top scientists (one of MIRA’s few true competents from what Banai can tell), she’s returning home to finish a paper and present her findings.

The PhD is in... rocks. Minerals? Geology?

Either way, she is presently _the Skeld’s_ pride and joy.

Since the crew’s mean age is probably over fifty, Yarrow and Bosques have been the babies up until this point, despite hovering around their third decade. ‘Babies.’ Another MIRA team quirk. Banai would hesitate to call a coworker a baby even if they were a literal infant.

Gbeho is not a baby. She is a twenty-something on the rise. A shooting star who will surely leave MIRA well behind after this discovery. Unlike the rest of the underachievers on board.

None of whom seem to care much about her actual resume.

Some of the crew is simply leery of anyone with half their years and twice as many degrees. The rest is just happy to have a fresh and pretty face. Yarrow and Praga fell for her instantly; Bosques and she paint their nails together; Roy gives her advice on what meals to pick in the caf.

Oe and the captain were tired of her by the first night cycle. But they can’t say anything because she is perfectly charming, and she has only ever answered questions about her work, never bragged. At least this gives the two of them something to bond over, if silently.

As for Banai, they just want the paycheck the doctor represents.

That gentle smile’s still going, and Banai forgot to look away.

“You’re sure everything’s alright, lieutenant?” she asks, a little nervous tilt hitting her brows.

“Yes.”

Electrical is just around the corner from here. Oe was holed up in its belly last Banai saw, and almost every time Banai has seen, frankly. They peek around the corner. The hum is loudest here. Cranking and chugging, too.

No Orange. Must be in the back. “Mr. Oe,” Banai calls softly. No answer. Must be really in the back. Must be—

Humming stops. Doesn’t stop; olfaction overpowers hearing. God, Banai knows that smell. They cut the corner.

“Mr. Oe!”

  
-  
  


Fact 3 is something that everyone knows but that Banai hasn’t really ever internalized until this very moment. Yes, they’ve spent the better part of the past ten years off-planet. Yes, they’ve seen weird things, inexplicable _things_ happen in space.

Photo and sonic phenomena. Not hallucinations—not when a bright smear of aurora manifests and floats itself across the caf while the whole crew eyes each other with, ‘ _Did you see that, too?_ ’ Not when the ship goes in for repairs and one of the exterior thermals plates isn’t a synthetic polymer anymore. It’s just aluminum. 100% pure.

Things changing, being born in the middle of nowhere space, but very much in the middle of humans trying to live their lives.

Orange-tag MIRA employee, aged 52 (according to file), bad at poker, good at shouting matches after poker _Mr. Oe_ is currently in two very different places. Legs are over by an open wall panel on the right, the rest of him two meters away, bent up against a corner, and a trail of blood, viscera and bone runs between.

Banai only vomits a little. The sort of reaction that they can keep contained and mostly swallow back down.

They’ve seen worse. Well. Not really. They try to think of things less awful to focus on but only come up with a kid they saw back in those soldiering days, dead from a head wound, flyblown, great, another heave of vomit.

God, if only it didn’t smell so terrible.

The vomit dribbles between their fingers. It’s mostly tea and acid.

Gloves wet with it now, they finally have the sense to reach for their sidearm. (It’s less-than-lethal, but that’s better-than-nothing.) They wheel the muzzle on every nook, every cranny. Nothing. No one. Just blood on their boots now. Just a better idea of where not to put their eyes if they want to keep the nausea down.

How could? This? Oe, bisected. The guts are unspooling from his legs.

Banai backs out, and the blood smears off their boots. They seal the door and lock it with their code.

Fuck.

-

Banai tells the captain.

Wei has been with _the Skeld_ for four years. They don’t seem to like their job (who does?), but they do take it seriously. Their MIRA-issued flight suit has no modifications. Their black hair is always tied tight at the back of their scalp. They have no hobbies. They talk about work during downtime.

When Banai walks as calmly as their training and experience with horrific death allows them into navigation, the captain is reviewing Mr. Roy’s courselog.

“Dead,” they repeat. “Did you attempt resuscitation? Why didn’t you call for help?”

Banai shakes their head but doesn’t break eye contact.

Capt. Wei calls an emergency meeting in the cafeteria. Banai hovers at their shoulder. The yellow caf lights are familiar, but the fewer people present, the more unnatural they seem to glow. The ship’s humming echoes broader in here, too, and the emptiness feels like cold molasses.

“Sit down, lieutenant,” the captain says.

Banai bites back a protest. What would they tell the captain anyways? That they’re anxious, please don’t make them sit? Security is nervous? At least beneath the table, their foot can tap up and down and up and out of sight.

Praga is in almost immediately, barrelling out of medbay with a first aid kit in hand.

“No need,” the captain says. “Have a seat.”

“That’s a relief,” Praga says as they toss the kit under the bench and themself on top. The look of intensity on their face shifts to their typical blase smirk.

Yarrow and Gbeho arrive next. Their gaits are purposeful but not rushed.

“What’s going on?” Yarrow asks.

“We’ll discuss when everyone is here,” the captain says.

“Nothing too serious, I hope.”

The captain doesn’t answer.

“Ah, I see.” She takes a seat next to Praga and motions for Gbeho to sit on her right.

Praga shoots Yarrow a she-could-have-sat-between-us look.

Yarrow smiles. It’s her therapist smile. “Green and I were just talking about home. She says her parents are both in academia; I think they’re about your age.”

“Message received,” Praga clips.

Bosques is still bent over his crossword as he walks in. He bumps into a bench but keeps going until his knees find the right table.

Coming down from the cabins, Roy stops at the dispenser long enough for the captain to clear their throat. “I can hear you plenty clear, cap,” he calls over his shoulder.

“At your leisure, Mr. Roy.”

“Anyone else want a cookie?”

“No,” the captain says, cutting Yarrow off.

Nonetheless, Roy sets a pile of packages at the center of the table before throwing himself onto the bench. He opens his mouth to join the chatter, but Wei raises their hand.

The captain looks them all in the eye one by one. Including Banai. Banai stares back and doesn’t let it show how that bothers them.

“An issue has arisen.”

The crew is glancing around. Uncomfortably aware of Orange’s absence. **OE** ’s. Dead Oe. Dead, dead, Banai-didn’t-like-him-but-this-won’t-look-good-in-a-report Oe.

“Mr. Oe has passed away.”

Yarrow gives it only a moment before asking, “What happened?”

“The precise circumstances have yet to be determined. We’ll convene again after the autopsy is complete.”

Praga throws a little salute that morphs into finger guns on its descent.

Purple won’t be the one Banai complains to, either.

The captain continues, “But suffice to say that the cause was probably not... ah, natural.”

Banai gives their most solemn nod. This doesn’t calm anyone.

“An accident?” Yarrow asks. This is the first time Banai has seen her make that face. Her eyes are glassy over their hazel.

It’s very hard to imagine what kind of accident could produce the complete and utter destruction of Mr. Oe’s spine, liver, kidneys, stomach and spleen. But space is just fucking weird like that, isn’t it?

“Potentially,” the captain replies.

“What kind of accident are we talking about here?” Roy asks.

The captain hesitates just a bit too long, and ‘foul play’ is now unspoken in the pressurized atmo. Several sets of eyes jump to Banai, who feels their jaw clench with the ease of a rusted cog. Hopefully they won’t regret not insisting on keeping this a secret.

“We can assume that the autopsy will give us more insight. For now, if there’s any chance of further danger—”

“What kind of danger?” Roy demands.

“Again, that has yet to be determined. Praga, Banai and I will remove the body from electrical and seal the room until it’s safe. Until our next meeting, no one goes anywhere alone. Buddy system. Review your first aid procedures.”

Gbeho’s eyes look a little hollow. Yarrow is saying she’ll be her buddy. 

“Are you sure he’s dead?” Bosques says. “I just saw him a few hours ago.”

“He’s dead,” Banai replies.

“But I saw him. He was fine.”

“He’s dead now.”

“No, no way.”

Roy usually prefers playing uncle-only-visiting-for-the-holidays but with a huff says, “Let’s the rest of us all stay here. No one’s helping me with these cookies.”

“Oh,” Yarrow says, “cookies. Lovely. Let’s have a cookie. Which flavor do you like? Green? Blue?”

“There’s no way he’s dead.”

“A butter one, please.”

“No one was in the middle of any tasks, were they?”

“I don’t need a cookie! I need—!”

Banai leads the captain and Praga back to electrical in silence. Before keying in their code, they take a deep breath. Their crewmates wait. The captain is as serious as ever, and Praga looks bored. The purple-tag doctor has a wide mouth and small eyes. Both contribute to the expression, weighted down beneath their receding hairline.

Banai says, “The body is... in a state.”

“That bad?” Purple says, perfect sarcasm.

“Lt. Banai has made it clear that Mr. Oe was definitely beyond resuscitation when they found him.”

“He was maimed.”

“Okay,” Praga says.

“It wasn’t normal.”

“Maiming usually isn’t.”

“There’s a lot of blood.”

“ _That_. _Bad_?”

“Open the door, lieutenant.”

Banai jams the code in. The door slides open. The smell rolls out.

Praga shoots them a sharp look, but then marches in headlong and nearly slips on the corpse as they turn the corner.

The doctor and the captain have to take a moment. Banai doesn’t comment.

Finally, Praga says, “Okay, yeah, that’s not normal.”

The group hangs at the edge of the spilled viscera.

The captain says, “Blithe as always, doctor.”

“Oh, _sorry_ if my coping mechanisms aren’t up to snuff, but what do you want me to say to...?” They gesture.

“Something a little more sensitive.”

“Fine, RIP Orange.”

“Doctor.”

“Sorry. I’m freaking out a bit.” Praga doesn’t look it; they just look a bit sick and a bit annoyed and a bit confused. They don’t look like Bosques did with the gears grinding feverishly behind his glasses. They don’t look like Gbeho whose brown and downcast face glowed like a Renaissance angel mourning whatever it was angels were supposed to mourn.

“We all are, Dr. Praga. That is no excuse.” Capt. Wei doesn’t look it, either. But the captain never looks much different. Always just a bit constipated. A bit more than usual, perhaps. “Now, what might have done this?”

Praga throws out their arms. “I’m a GP, not a forensic investigator. A big knife? I don’t know?”

Banai says, “Something like this would take an incredible amount of force. Machinery, probably. Dr. Praga, could you determine if he was dead or alive when it occurred?”

“Sure, uh, sure.”

The captain shakes their head. “How could no one have seen anything?”

“Or heard it?” Praga crosses their arms tight now.

Yarrow and Gbeho were the closest to electrical, but they were together, can vouch for each other. And Banai isn’t about to suggest anything without evidence. Unprofessional. Causes panic.

(And Banai is only thinking about it because they have to. It’s their job to think about violence of the worst sort. It just wasn’t supposed to be for this walk-in-the-park run. Sweet, little Gbeho? Gets-along-with-everyone Yarrow?)

“Then no one was nearby when it happened,” Banai says, “or he was dead before he could scream.” Which also meant whatever had been used to... rend him would have to be silent, too.

A long pause. It’s harder to pretend things are normal when no one talks. So much blood. Bones cut into shrapnel.

Finally, Praga says a little weakly, “This could just be one of those weird space things.”

“Space things,” the captain repeats.

“Yeah.” They turn to face the rest of the group. The out-of-sight-out-of-mind bolsters their tone a bit. “You’re a real veteran, captain. I bet this isn’t the most disturbing thing you’ve seen.”

The captain seems to think for a moment. “Have I seen something more disturbing than a bisected torso. No.”

“What do you think, Banai? I’ve heard the laws of physics just go haywire sometimes. One of the crew on my last assignment said she’d seen someone walk right through a wall. Never happened again. It’s just probability. Anything can happen just once.”

Banai says, “I don’t know about that.”

“But you’ve _seen_ things. Not this bad, but they happen.”

“Foo fighters,” the captain says, “solar songs, cosmic blinding, hallucinations. Not. This.”

“Maybe we went through something just right and _swish—_ ” they swing an arm “—there goes old Oe.”

“Went through what, precisely?” Banai asks.

“The universe, a patch of quantum something-or-other. It’s not supposed to make sense.”

This is only their second run together, but Banai knows Wei’s worried face. This is more intense: brows down instead of up, lips roiling instead of taught. In a cold, wavering tone, they say, “Oe is dead. That needs to make sense.”

Praga’s tone isn’t much less desperate. “And what makes sense? Exactly? That it wasn’t some _thing_ but some _one_ who—”

In an instant, the captain finds their anchor. Banai isn’t sure what they think of whenever they close their eyes, raise their chin and take a deep breath. Spring fields, family, puppies. It always seems to work for them. “Dr. Praga, I’ll ask you to cease the mumbo-jumbo. We will not let ourselves get worked up over fantastical nonsense. Let’s get this body to med so we can complete the autopsy and fill out an incident report.”

Praga is only a little pouty at ‘mumbo-jumbo.’

“Lt. Banai. I need something to tell the crew.” And they don’t say, ‘I want someone to blame.’

“I’ll review the cams.”

“Do.”

And Banai does. They find Oe’s last living appearance. They find everyone’s last recorded location. Oe went into electrical at transit hour 4:06:08:38. No one went in after him.

-

Ah, the captain didn’t tell them to take a buddy.


	2. Chapter 2

Banai escorts Roy and Bosques to communications. The latter sends the report to HQ, tagged URGENT. A few minutes later, he reads the reply aloud. “Advise initiation of level two safety protocols. Preserve body for further examination. Stay safe team. Smiley emoticon.”

Roy shakes his head. “Always with the darn smiley face.”

“That’s it?” Banai asks.

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” (Is MIRA this bad? Banai heard it was bad. A few of their fellow mercs laughed before they went out on this assignment. Faulty lights, smelly showers, employees don’t know left from right. But MIRA’s been running for years. Bad things can’t last that long before crumbling and clearing up space for new bad things.) “Let’s get back to the caf.”

Bosques says, “Under second protocols, we’re supposed to comm before we change locations.”

Banai sighs.

“Oh my god, the receivers.”

“Technically,” Roy says, “we’re still at level one until the captain says so.”

“Oh my god, the network.” Bosques scrabbles at the desk for a moment. “Please tell me the PA—” his thumb hits the button, and his voice vibrates up and down the halls “—system is still. Oh… yep, it works. Hi crew, we’re on our way back.” A crackle as his thumb slides off. “Wow, imagine if the PA system went out, too.”

“Don’t you say that,” Roy growls.

Everyone is clustered in the caf waiting for Emergency Meeting Pt. the Second. Yarrow and Praga are plying Gbeho with more cookies. She looks a little less listless and a little more just plain tired. She puts her hand up as one of the doctors offers to fix her some coffee. The captain is pacing.

Bosques insists on pushing the alarm to signify the start of a new meeting before he divulges HQ’s reply. The crew looks alternately glum or pissed at both of these things.

The captain doesn’t actually say, ‘How can HQ be so useless?’ but they do review the level two protocols with a sort of dispassionate simmer. “And the autopsy?” they ask when they finish.

Banai wouldn’t have guessed Praga heard a word of the captain’s speech, but the doctor immediately straightens and places their hands, fingers laced, on the table. “So, Orange was ripped in two.”

A moment.

“Come again?” Yarrow says.

“Something tore the entire top of Orange’s body from the entire bottom of Orange’s body, and that’s what killed him.”

“Um. For real?” Bosques hasn’t even seen it and looks like he’ll throw up.

“How awful,” Gbeho says. She looks like a forlorn 17th century peasant now, the way her hands clasp under her chin, her face turned just a bit askance.

“Something in electrical did this?” Yarrow asks.

“What in electrical,” Roy says, “could rip someone in two!”

Bosques says, “That’s really how he died? Purple, you’re pranking us. Captain, are you in on this?”

“This is no joke.”

“Aliens?”

Everyone turns to Gbeho who apparently thought this would contribute to the conversation. She looks scared like a kid about to ride a roller coaster their dad said they weren’t ready for but the kid insisted and they’re not going to back down now because their dad can’t be right about them again.

“Baby, no,” Yarrow soothes.

Praga gives the captain an aha! look.

“Aliens,” Bosques nods, says it like he just figured out the answer to 1. Down.

“I’m sorry,” Gbeho says, “I didn’t mean for that to be so dramatic.”

“That’s quite alright, doctor,” the captain says, “but please, let’s not encourage anything.”

“No such thing as aliens,” Roy murmurs.

“Well…” Gbeho taps her cheek.

“Well what?” Praga asks, despite the captain’s glower.

“I just got excited is all. Sorry, sorry. Aliens aren’t responsible, of course. But I do have to correct Mr. Red. Extraterrestrial life does exist. Or did, I guess.”

“Um!” Bosques manages.

Gbeho looks around like she’s waiting for someone to jump in to defend her. “I’m sure I’ve talked about my findings at length. And the Saggaf/ben-Attar xenobotany paper. And the Indra System microbes. And... Did… no one…?”

Yarrow rushes in. “Yes! Bacteria! Your bacteria. Fossils, you said. The whole reason we’re on this run. For those bacteria samples in storage.”

 _‘Oh, right,’_ Praga nods along.

Bosques quirks his brow. “Bacteria? It’s not just rocks? Is it contagious?”

“They’ve been dead for thousands of years,” Gbeho explains.

“It’s just,” Yarrow says, “when you say ‘ _aliens_ ’...”

“A guy thinks of _Predator_.” Roy sighs. “Green, don’t stress me out like that. Why would you do that?”

“Well, I was excited. And this trip was—is my first time in space, and maybe I, umm, like _Predator_ , too? But not as much as _Alien_. The movie, I mean.”

“Enough,” the captain grits out. “There are more important issues to discuss.”

 _‘Sorry,’_ Gbeho mouths.

“We don’t have an engineer,” Banai says.

“Or an explanation,” Praga adds.

“So what now?” Roy asks. “We can’t just sit on our hands for the rest of the flight.”

“We should be scared, right?” Bosques says. “Because I’m kind of not okay. And the bacteria…?”

“It’s dead, Blue.”

The captain raises their voice to say, “We’ll have to apportion Mr. Oe’s tasks. Mr. Roy and I know the ship well enough, so we’ll take on the brunt of the work. He or I will be on duty at all times.”

Roy’s eyes bite shut, his lips tighten.

“Additionally, I’ll work to ensure everyone has a buddy for their assignments. And finally, I’m asking Dr. Yarrow to check in with everyone.”

“Um, yes, as we discussed.”

Bosques gives her a grateful look, and she smiles warmly despite the distress clinging to the corners of her eyes. A yes-we-discussed-it-but-that-was-before-I-found-out-how-exactly-Orange-died smile.

The captain says, “Mr. Roy, Lt. Banai, you will be first.”

“Why me?”

Banai arches an eyebrow to ask the same thing.

“I want you both well-rested. I know if things were… normal you’d be going back on shift now, Mr. Roy, but the... events have disrupted things, your sleep cycle included. Talk with Dr. Yarrow, take some downtime and report back to me at transit hour 4:16:00:00.”

He lights up. “Okay, thanks, cap.”

“Captain,” Banai says, “are you sure you don’t need me?”

“Thank you, lieutenant, I’m sure. I’ll be in navigation adjusting our schedules.”

Transit hour 4:16:00:00 is a little over five hours from now. Not long but enough to grab a shower and a power nap. Probably. How long do psych evals take? Mental assessments? ‘Check ins?’ An hour? Shit, hopefully not an hour.

“Can I go first?” Roy asks as the two of them head towards medbay behind Dr. Yarrow.

Hopefully not a fucking hour.

After Roy scampers in and the door seals behind him, Banai lingers. They lean against the wall until they relax enough to feel tired. The doctors and Bosques are discussing events in the caf.

“I can’t believe Orange is gone. He was so full of life.”

“And spite.”

“Purple, you shouldn't say stuff like that.”

“Did he have family?”

“Probably not.”

Banai turns away, walks down the hall, praying something on this half-broken ship needs their attention for a few moments. Heading toward the stern, they skim the panels for blinking lights or ‘Not Good’ sounds. They hardly know what the hell they’re doing.

They spend some time tugging on the controls for the left engine’s alignment. It feels stupid, seems stupid. But Oe said you can feel it get tighter when the alignment locks. Ah, yes, there it is, an easiness as it falls into place.

This ship is a nightmare. No wonder Roy and the captain spend so much time adjusting course.

Eventually, the captain’s voice comes over the PA, “Bosques to navigation.”

That’ll be one less person sitting on their backside gossiping, at least.

The caf is silent when Banai returns to their roost beside the medbay door. Three or four minutes later, the door opens, and Roy peels out with a, “Good luck,” before beelining to the cabins.

Medbay’s lights are white to the caf’s yellow. It’s obviously meant to give the impression of sanitation, but everything in the room is more likely to be covered in dust than bodily fluids. Horrible things can happen in a bucket in the middle of the vacuum, but most of what MIRA’s employees suffer amounts to mild electrical burns, bruises and headaches.

Yarrow is sitting in the one chair. Her bleach-blonde hair is just as much out of alignment as the engine was. She swipes her hand through it uselessly before she looks up. “Good afternoon, lieutenant,” she says once Banai is in biting range.

They nod and look down her arm as she gestures to the examination table. _‘Please sit.’_

“Will this be long?” they ask.

“About half an hour, I suspect.” She shovels through her clipboard.

“Really.” Banai steps up, sits. They clutch their hands on the synthetic upholstery.

“Or longer.” She looks up, smiling. Therapist smile, as usual.

Banai just blinks and rolls their lips.

“Shall we start?” she asks. “How are you feeling, by the way?”

Anxious, indignant, frustrated, obviously. “Fine.”

She sits with her ankles crossed, pen poised, eyes still glassy above the professional bend of her lips. “You were in the armed forces. I suspect this isn’t all that unfamiliar to you.”

“Which part?”

Gossip smile now. “The dead body or psych evaluation, you mean?”

They cant their head.

“Yes.”

“Am I a suspect?”

“There are no suspects.”

“The captain asked you to do this?”

“Check in with everyone after a brutal murder?”

“Snoop.”

“Goodness.” She actually snorts. “Let’s get started.”

She marches them through all the basic questions. Notes everything down. When she asks how they’ve been feeling over the past few days, they answer honestly.

“Bored. In a good way. I… appreciate routine. Especially when that routine involves sitting alone with a mug of tea.” And a video game or film playing on one of the screens. “But I’ve been frust—uh, frustrated. This ship’s a wreck.”

She nods: agreeing or backchanneling. Either way, Banai’s fingers clench and unclench the upholstery.

They think a lot more than they say. That they’re abashed at MIRA’s regulations, that at least in the military everything sucked according to schedule, that they’re not sure if they’re to blame for Oe being dead, that their paycheck is going to suffer for this, that NSPS isn’t going to be pleased to have another black (oh, ha) mark on their record.

“How do you tend to deal with these frustrations?”

Like anyone who hasn’t had time to find a vent buddy on this rustbucket. “Let it go, I guess.”

“Everything in this room is confidential. You can always come to me if you need to get something off your chest or if you want help working through it.”

Sure.

“Can I ask how you’re holding up after...?”

“Tired.”

“Would you like to talk about what you saw in electrical?”

“Mr. Oe. Dead.”

“But _torn in half_?”

“Completely.”

Yarrow starts to say something else but closes her mouth. It’s pity or disgust or fear in her eye when she says, “That must have… been unpleasant… to, ah, to see.”

Sure, certain eye contact. “Very.”

“Please, Lt. Banai, if you’d like to talk about it—”

 _Like_ to. “I feel like crap. My clothes are wet and cold and tacky because they’re covered in blood. Oe was one of my charges, and I failed to protect him. A Lot, and I didn’t take this job for free grief counseling, so I’d really just _like_ to take a shower.”

Her pen scrawls over her legal pad.

“Are you writing that down?”

“Black, what do you think did it?”

“Who do I think?”

“You think it was someone.”

“I think I have no idea. Tell the captain what you want. May I go now?”

-

It’s quiet in the cabins. Mr. Roy is probably already asleep. The dim, narrow hall branches into ladder-steep stairs which lead to double bunks. Banai had their own berth for their first run on _the Skeld_ , but Dr. Gbeho got put with them when Oe pulled seniority to keep her out of his space. Banai stops by their bunk just long enough to strip down to their skivvies and grab soap. Might as well bring a change of shorts and tank, too. It’s halfway through the run anyways. They toss the dirty flight suit on top of the bed. Who cares at this point?

The head is cramped, but the shower is tall enough to get comfortable in as long as you don’t like being in a sustainable position when you scrub your feet. A staggered wet-shower like the ones on _the Skeld_ isn’t normally something Banai looks forward to. Right now, they’re worked up enough, though, that they forget to smell the tinge of mildew. Maybe the water will be properly warm for once.

It isn’t, but it _is_ warmer than the air on their gooseflesh and enough that they choke down a sob and close their eyes and lift their head and wonder if they can center themself the way the captain does.

Buzz.

The five second warning comes so fast sometimes. They hurry to lather up some soap, and the water flow stops, and they’re covered in froth, and the flow doesn’t come back on. They scowl, slap the faucet. Rinse? _Rinse_?

Did they zone out that long? Miss the whole shower? Did the timer malfunction? Is the shower broken because wouldn’t that be an end to the day?

They stand there feeling slimy. Blood and sweat and soap all homogenized from the folds of their eyelids to between their toes. They could just towel it off.

It’s been a long couple of hours. They helped heave the body onto the gurney because the captain couldn’t bring themself to touch arms, face. So much blood, the flight suits are thick, but it soaked through so much, so much.

Banai shivers.

Fuck it. Whatever. They’ll take a second water ration. Wait five minutes for the light to go green. The captain can chew them out later. Banai’ll just say, ‘You can carry it yourself next time.’

 _Next_ time?

They slam the shower on as soon as it’s ready.

Everything is normal this time. They focus just to make sure, which turns the 90 second lather period even longer, even more silent. At least they’re already clean by the time the rinse turns on. These last three minutes feel like lukewarm heaven. They soak it in. Still focused.

When the water shuts down for the last time, they’re aware again of the ship’s humming.

Towel, check their bruise-tired eyes in the mirror, fresh underwear, appreciate that this run is long enough to warrant a change, clench fists because this run is long enough, toss the dirty shorts and tank down the chute, climb back up to their berth, check the time.

Not quite three hours until they’re due to report in. The moment they close their eyes to weigh how close they can cut it with the alarm, they know they won’t be able to sleep. Their heart has that cavernous feeling that makes them want to pace, but pacing never helps.

Sighing, they pull out their personal effects from the compartment under their bunk. Over the years, they’ve learned plenty of tricks for getting contraband where it’s not supposed to be. Getting a hypnotic onto _the Skeld_ turned out to be a non-issue. Easy.

Non-prescribed sedatives aren’t technically allowed on an interstellar flight where everyone should be ready to hit the ground running at the sound of an alarm lest they suffocate, explode, swing too close to a gravity well, get torn in half in elec, etc. But Banai is thinking of that kid with the head wound again.

This is probably the last two and a half hours they’ll get for the rest of the flight.

They pull out their blue plastic pill case. In the military, everyone just called the stuff KO. It puts you out fast but doesn’t keep you that way if there’s sufficient external stimuli to rouse you. Everyone loved it because the hangover was mild to nonexistent. Good for those nights when it’s just _too quiet_ to sleep. Banai can deal with the nausea it leaves in its wake.

They gauge the dosage, hoping their tolerance hasn’t gone down since they last used it. Last needed it.

Dry swallowing the pills leaves a smear of chemical chalk down their tongue. Supposedly, some component in the sedative doesn’t play well with stomachs, but Banai has always just figured it was the awful taste devouring their mouth that left them queasy the next morning. The water bottle shoved between their mattress and the wall is drained. Of course.

At least sleep will replace the taste with its own stale flavor.

After setting their alarm, they toe their boots into a tidier location at the foot of the bunk. They run a hand over their face, adjust the fall of their tank. Ugh, why did they leave their flight suit on the bed? They fold up the stiffening thing, and their belt and holster tumble onto the covers. Empty. They unfold the suit. Not there. They check around their feet. Oh great, this is fine. They make it back to the head, but when they bend up from searching between the toilet and the wall, the sedative has placed its warm, wooly hand over their brain.

Smacking their cheeks does absolutely nothing.

Who else is in the cabins? Roy. They pick the first set of stairs they see, and it’s mercifully the right one. The navigator’s snoring is hard to miss, Banai realizes after feeling proud of their luck for a moment. As they shuffle up to his bunk, they hiss, “Red. Mr. Roy.”

He’s asleep. Right, that’s what snoring means.

They want to let him stay that way. They’re clean, and they want to just go to sleep and have a handful of hours to shut down and recalibrate. It feels like a pile of folded blankets is cramming its way into their skull.

Ooph, that sedative always tastes bad. Ah, they forgot to brush their teeth.

The gun.

“Roy.” They shake his shoulders. Again. Resort to a little slap.

No, no, did they brush their teeth?

“Uh!” Roy swats them away, eyelids flickering. He starts to rise, groans and collapses again. “Awake,” he says. It’s only a little unconvincing. His eyes are closed.

“Did you touch my sidearm?”

“Your what?”

“My gun.”

“Okay.”

“Did you touch it?”

“No. Don’t like that thing.”

“Then where is it?” Banai stands and staggers back to their (?) bunk to comb ineffectually through their clothes again. But their clothes aren’t there for some reason.

“Yeah, go to sleep,” Roy mutters, and he rolls onto his side, away from Banai and Banai’s voice and Banai’s problem that is feeling less and less problematic as their body gets heavy. They have enough time to think about the captain’s pissed off face before they fall asleep hugging the covers to their cheek.

-

They wake up. Their watch is beeping. Their head is clear (vaguely), stomach churning (a lot). They sit up.

Why is their bunk on the wrong side of the berth?

Why is Gbeho snoring?

Why is their _berth_ on the wrong side of—?

Shit, this is Red and Blue’s berth. Banai remembers coming in half-asleep. They slap the alarm off and climb onto their feet. Hopefully Bosques won’t mind. Smoothing the bedclothes, they amend it to: hopefully Bosques won’t notice.

They’re half way down the steps before they remember why they were in there. Damn it, damn it. Captain won’t be happy. But on the bright side, Banai’s not dead, so probably Red didn’t steal it to continue a homicidal rampage.

The first thing they do in their own berth, aside from slouch against the wall, is check their receiver. Icon still shows no network connection. Come on, Bosques.

They change into their second flight suit and take one more tour around the cabins. Twenty minutes until transit hour 4:16:00:00. Luckily no one comes in to catch them peeking around the other bunks or clawing at all the nooks and crannies in the head with their ass shoved out in the hallway since the room is too small to accommodate a body in any position other than sitting-on-the-john and standing-up-in-the-shower.

Five minutes. Anxiety makes their head miserably more lucid. Finally, they decide it’s better to just report straight to the captain. But the caf is empty, so the lights make them more nauseous, and they have to stop for some tea at the dispenser. As they watch the cup fill with a glorious plume of steam, they wonder if Red will be on time.

The sooner they report their missing sidearm to the captain, the sooner they can sit down and enjoy the tea. Their foot is tapping.

When the dispenser chimes, they draw the hot steam to their face. “Ah,” they sigh even though the tea is too weak to have much of a fragrance.

Down to nav. They don’t pass anyone on the way.

And the captain isn’t in the pilot’s seat. Their heart grips tight for just a second. Mr. Oe spilled to pieces. “Captain?” Ah, this is how it was with Oe, too. “Capt. Wei?” Calling out to a corpse. Where is the PA in here? There’s one in nav, definitely.

But instead of wasting time looking for _more things_ they can’t find, they swing back into the hall to check in oxygen. Quiet in there, aside from the humming.

Okay, down through shields. They pass their tea to their left hand to reach for their gun, which isn’t there of course.

Calm down, calm down. They take a sip of the tea, and it only burns a little. Stomach isn’t just nauseous anymore; it’s twisted in half a dozen knots. There is no reason to believe the captain is in any danger. Banai must be alert at all times, never panic. They blow on the tea until their brain can catch up with the rest of their body. It only takes a few seconds, but every one of those feels like a needle instead of a moment in time.

Obviously, the tea would taste better if it were mint or had spices or something. Then again, it might just taste too much like planetside, like home, and that seems sad for some reason. Mr. Oe probably had a favorite kind of tea, huh?

Banai chides themself. This hardly counts as empathy. They’ve killed people. They’ve let people die. It’s in the job description. They’ve fought in combat and done some nasty contracts, and they’re still alive, and their brain still mostly works. Why is protection so rough, then?

Okay, they’re fine.

Time to finish their circuit and end up back at nav just in time for the captain to say, ‘You’re late,’ from behind their crossed arms.

Onto communications. The door is just ahead on the left. Slowing their pace, they glance in.

They stop short; still-hot tea spills over their hand, and they drop the cup with a hiss.

Bosques is in his chair, slumped, head bent back, and his throat is slit, and blood is aproning down his chest and puddling on top of the crossword puzzle in his lap.

“Are you shitting me?” Banai asks the universe and all its weirdness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah yes, the distant future when humans travel the stars and continue to create films in the Alien and Predator franchises


	3. Chapter 3

Once, Banai saw someone take a bullet through the eye and survive.

That wasn’t even in space, that was planetside.

Everyone is completely silent in the caf this time. There’s no Bosques to calm with cookies. Never will be. Banai is on their second cup of replacement-tea. They’re in self-imposed exile at the table by the dispenser. Now that they’ve found two bloody bodies, everyone seems to think they’re touched with death or death is touched with them or whatever, and the crew is very edgy whenever they do damn near anything. Cross their legs, get more tea, breathe.

Of course, Banai has been surrounded by death for so long, maybe it just builds on itself into some kind of magnet.

God, is there even a point to hoping for a proper paycheck at the end of this?

When Praga comes back in with the captain, all six of the remaining crew are present. Banai looks to the two of them wearily, and the captain is brows lowered, lips puckered. The captain is livid. “Lieutenant, your sidearm,” they demand, approaching with one hand extended.

Fuck, oh, what? Everyone is looking. “It went missing earlier.”

“You didn’t report this?”

“I was looking for you, captain, when… Look, I told Mr. Roy about it.”

Roy gives one firm nod. His teeth are tight. Then the rest of his face compacts. “Wait, did you?”

What the fuck. “I told you when I got out of the head.” They’re on their feet.

“Sorry, I guess I don’t remember.”

“You don’t? Remember?” Banai was the one tranqued up, and _Red_ doesn’t remember it?

“Bosques had blisters over his chest and stomach,” Praga says. Their usual levity is wavering into whisper. “Consistent with the kind MIRA’s standard issue pistol leaves behind. Without naming any names, _some_ one must have incapacitated him so he couldn’t fight back when they fucking _slit his fucking throat_.”

“I guess this means you’re giving up on the ‘weird space’ theory,” Banai says sourly.

“Oh not at all, _lieutenant_. For all we know you have some kind of special space madness.” (For a brief moment, their stomach clenches and drops like an implosion. Can someone sleep-murder? Could _they_ have sleep-murdered? And then they remember they can’t tear people in two and also sleep-murder isn’t a thing.) “But that’s not the point anymore.”

(Still, now is probably not the best time to own up to the hypnotic.)

Banai doesn’t quite mean to, but they prowl closer to the table where the rest of the crew is anchored. Roy scoots away. They slow.

“Banai couldn’t have done this,” Yarrow states. “They were in the cabins, and White changed the override code on the door. They couldn’t have gotten out.”

Changed. The locks? Without saying anything? This thought ticks its way across Red’s face, and he turns, wounded expression like melted candy, to stare at the captain

The captain’s stoic mouth breaks, and their lips curl in. “Actually… I didn’t get around to it yet.”

Praga mutters, “For fuck’s sake…”

“Language, doctor,” the captain’s voice is weak.

“You wanted to lock us in there?” Banai asks cooly.

“For safety purposes.”

“Because you don’t trust me.”

Roy gawks. “You already knew it was the lieutenant? And you put me in there with them!”

The navigator’s piqued tone spreads hot through the rest of the crew. It’s going to cause another panic.

“I didn’t ‘know’ anything, Mr. Roy.”

“Oh, yeah, _yeah_?”

This is ridiculous. Banai grabs his sleeve. “Red.”

Roy looks at where their fingers lock into his flight suit. He looks up. “What’d you call me?”

“ _Roy_.” Nope. “Red.”

The rock hard smolder in his eyes says, ‘Lt. Banai does _not_ call me that.’ But Red has no idea how annoying he can be, and how much easier it is to call him that when you don’t like him.

Eyes wide, he asks, “Did you kill Baby Blue?” His breath is in their face.

“Lieutenant, please let go of my navigator.”

His breath is in their face because Banai’s leaning down into his. They hear the captain’s words. They feel the thick-aired intensity of every set of eyes on them.

Emotions are such a chore. Anger is the only easy one nowadays, and it’s a Bad Look.

Their fingers unclasp; they manage to pull back without pushing Roy in the process. Their gaze swings to the captain. “It wasn’t me.”

And the captain doesn’t answer.

“The only reason I’m on this damn ship is to get paid. Killing crew isn’t exactly productive toward that end.”

“Then who did it?” Gbeho asks, her tone innocent enough, though the content threatens to stir up more of Red’s vitriol.

He’s shaking his head. “Of course you started with Orange. He was right about security. Right about _you._ How many times has anyone been on a run and actually needed a sec officer?”

“Frequently,” the captain says.

But Roy goes on, “We don’t even know anything about Black! Only who they work for. And you know what I heard about NSPS? _Their_ company?” He jabs a finger in Banai’s direction.

Banai just drapes their face into their palm.

Even more from Roy, “NSPS contracted with insurgents last year. They put a corrupt government in power on…”

“Where?” Gbeho asks.

Praga is getting into it, nodding. “Yeah!”

“Look, I don’t remember specifics.”

“NSPS _is_ a little sketchy, though…” Yarrow says.

Praga says, “Well, let’s be real, every paramilitary organization probably has a few war crimes under its belt, but anything’s better than Talisman. Remember the last sec officer we had?”

“Enough!”

This is the first time Banai has heard White properly angry. Yes, they grit their teeth sometimes or frown or scold or bitterly bite out a command every once in a while. Right now, their glare is so dark, it could make a drill sergeant blush.

“My apologies,” they say. They’re breathing. They rub their forehead. “Everyone sit down, please.”

The crew complies.

“There are two dead.”

“Blue, Baby Blue, better luck with the crosswords in your next life,” Roy murmurs.

“Signs point to it being someone in this room.”

Banai asks, “Who last saw Bosques alive?”

Silence.

Just enough for them to slip in before anyone owns up, “Captain, you called him to nav before I went in with Dr. Yarrow.”

“That was hours ago,” Roy grumbles. “Are you _really_ trying to blame the captain of all people?”

“I’m not accusing them. I just want all the facts.”

“I don’t think the captain did it,” Gbeho says. When Banai glances, she quickly adds, “But that doesn’t mean I think the lieutenant did, either!”

“Who do you think then, Green?” Yarrow asks. Her voice is just a bit too urging for Banai’s comfort.

“I don’t know! No one! Who could do something like this?”

The captain says, “The fact remains that Mr. Bosques was shot and incapacitated with Lt. Banai’s sidearm.”

Jaw tight, Banai says, “It went missing, though. I didn’t have it.”

“Missing or otherwise, lieutenant, no one can vouch for your whereabouts.”

“Roy can.”

“I can’t! I was sleeping!”

If Banai were the killer, they would have just smothered Red in his bunk. It’s very hard not to share this information.

“I’m sorry, lieutenant, but we’re going to have to detain you.”

But they can’t contain anything else. “Fine. I’m a no-good fascist maniac. Lock me up. Maybe I can finally get some decent sleep.” Have fun being dead when they’re not here to catch the murderer.

Gbeho gasps.

“An admission?” Praga raises an eyebrow.

“That was clearly sarcasm,” Yarrow tuts.

“Oh,” Gbeho says, looking like she desperately wants to ungasp, whatever that would entail.

“Please stand, lieutenant,” the captain says. “Slowly.”

Done.

“Where will you put them?” Gbeho asks.

There isn’t anything resembling a brig on _the Skeld_ because what would it need a brig for?

“Do we eject them out the airlock?”

Yarrow’s turn to gape. “Purple!”

“Woah,” Gbeho huffs.

“We are rational people, Dr. Praga,” the captain says, “and we will do no such thing.”

“So,” Purple says, “how exactly _do_ you intend to detain them, captain?”

“Unfortunately.” The captain pauses. Their shoulders droop. “The q-comm was also damaged by the microwave pistol.” They leave just enough time for everyone to parse what they’ve heard but not quite process the holy-shit-we’re-alone-no-HQ-for-backup of this revelation. “At the moment, the communications room is practically useless.”

Stuck in comms for the rest of the flight. “I hope you don’t plan on starving me.”

“Mr. Roy, please fetch two bottles of water and a meal from the dispenser.”

Red blinks.

“That wasn’t a request, Mr. Roy.”

He moves mechanically, dusts his front off, turns to Banai with a neck-wrenching tilt of his neck. “Can I take your order, Black?”

“No ham.”

“You’re religious all of the sudden?”

The dispenser serves ham sandwiches. Banai has never eaten one. “Maybe I don’t like ham.”

“Dr. Gbeho,” the captain says, “a word.”

Gbeho nods solemnly. She gives Banai a piteous smile.

Yarrow and Purple just stare and Banai. They stare back. It probably looks hostile. That’s probably suspicious. They break eye contact and put their tea back to their lips. The cup’s empty.

At length, Red steps up, and the captain immediately steers Gbeho back over.

“Here.” Red shoves what looks like a sandwich package into the captain’s hands along with two bottles of water.

“Drs. Yarrow and Praga, will you please join me in escorting Lt. Banai to communications?”

“Gladly.”

“Of course, White.”

Captain in front, Yellow and Purple behind, the group leads Banai to comms in silence. They can practically hear-taste-smell Purple’s eyes drilling a wound into the back of their head.

As Capt. Wei comes to a stop at the threshold and spins on their heels to meet Banai’s gaze, Banai takes a deep breath and steps inside. Across their shoulder, “Captain. This is a mistake.”

Wei gives them a measured look, says, “I certainly hope so,” and gestures vaguely. Not so much hope as defeat.

Banai turns, keeps their head from shaking. The door slides shut behind them, too sound-tight to hear the captain’s fingers on the keypad.

Fine, whatever. They’ve survived loneliness and an empty stomach and nowhere to piss plenty of times. They’ll just sit tight in comms until the ship hits planetside and there’s an investigation and it makes news and Banai is found not-guilty-but-very-incompetent. Or someone opens up the door and shoots them paralyzed before finding a new creative way to make them dead. Or the door opens and Banai responds with the lightning reflexes they had ten years and three broken bones ago.

The blood didn’t even get cleaned off Bosques’s chair.

They toss the water bottles and sandwich onto a nearby desk and knead at an eye socket with the heel of their palm. Their nails slip past their hairline.

They can handle this. No problem. Nowhere to sit.

It’s been a long time since they’ve been driven to pace. Fidgeting and bouncing one hip isn’t going to cut it at the moment. It smells like hell in here. Not as bad as Oe in elec but _bad_.

Who took their pistol? It had to be Red, right? And killed Bosques? Banai never pegged him for the type, but _space is weird_ and cabin fever makes people weird anyways. But murder? Serial kill? (Okay, it’s only a spree after three bodies.) Banai has met plenty of people who would kill for next to nothing. Pocket change, bad vibes, ‘God made me do it’ (and God makes a lot of bad calls). Not Gbeho. Probably not Yarrow? Praga? They’re an asshole, but Banai _never pegged them for the type_ , space, weirdness, etc. Still, Banai—pacing, pacing—conjures up Praga’s face upon seeing Oe’s body, fitting different expressions into place in an attempt to remember what flavor of non-alarm Praga had been wearing.

Calm down.

They stop pacing. Heave themself onto the desk, butt beside the sandwich. Damn, they should’ve asked if anyone has a book or something. They spy Bosque’s blood-limp crossword spilled under the far desk beneath the q-comm. “Four letter word, starts with f.” They scoop up one of the water bottles, drain it in one breath and throw the empty plastic at the ruined puzzle book. “Ends with k.” Craning their neck now, they glance at the remaining water and the sandwich. “Rations getting low, troops. Gonna have to tighten those belts.”

Their ears catch up with the foot they’ve apparently been tapping. Speaking of murder-over-nothing. At least no one is here to bitch about Banai’s tendency to twitch.

Timepiece on their wrist reads… Well, they didn’t check the time when they came in but note it now.

God. It’s been a hot minute since they’ve gotten this worked up. Since they’ve worked a job where someone was dead that wasn’t supposed/allowed to be. But you can’t freak out over every other dead body or every other crew member jabbing their finger in your face. NSPS won’t like that. Deep breath. Come on now.

Okay.

They lift their wrist. Thirty-three seconds. Great. Look how far they’ve come emotionally in half a minute. Given enough time, enough tea-deprivation, how many problems could they solve on this ship?

If it weren’t for the paycheck, they wouldn’t remotely worry about a single ship-related problem. Mostly it _is_ preferable that the people around them don’t die violent and/or untimely deaths. Certainly not Gbeho. She’s too cute and fresh for that. Too cute and fresh to tolerate without hating yourself, but Banai doesn’t want her graduation photo next to their name where it appears in the news article. ‘Bitter ex-soldier. Ties to questionable private security service. Look at this young woman’s smile—Norman Rockwell couldn’t have painted prettier pearly whites.’

Yarrow is fine. ‘Fine,’ of course, means nothing when you live in a universe where sociopaths can get medals as long as they smile big at the podium and only commit war crimes off cams. Banai has known plenty of people who were fine until you got them to open their mouth about the right (wrong) thing. And Praga isn’t a war criminal, either, they just suck, and Roy sucks harder, but does he deserve to lose his life? No. Probably just a tooth or two. As for the captain, well, maybe they can take the brunt of the blame so their job is on the line instead of Banai’s. ‘Negligence. Heroic ex-soldier imprisoned in crew’s time of need.’

They pop open the sandwich. It’s turkey. Roy sucks less. They fold the packaging back over. The bread’s gonna dry out by the time they get around to it.

-

So are they supposed to figure this out?

-

Ten minutes in, they’re reviewing the facts. Everyone’s movements and motives are all fuzzy; that’s not Banai’s forte, but Banai does know a thing or two about violence.

The microwave pistol, for example. The blisters only bead up on your skin after prolonged exposure. (Whoever used the weapon on Bosques either liked overkill or simply intended for Banai to take the fall.) They’re easy to manage given a couple of days and an antibiotic. Doesn’t mean the blast doesn’t hurt like hell, a fact to which Banai can personally attest. They’ve seen people pass out from the pain long before the blisters would be a concern.

The thing is. The guns aren’t supposed to affect the machinery on the ship. It’s one of the reasons MIRA prefers them to firearms. One of the company’s few good calls.

So how could Banai’s sidearm have damaged the system? Did it? Is the q-comm an exception? They don’t know a damn thing about the machine aside from what everyone hears in school: quantum entanglement, two atoms or molecules or something tied up together do the same thing or whatever yes, this will be on the test. They have no clue how this fact is mechanized, but probably the captain does? Wouldn’t the captain know?

Wouldn’t they?

With fuckall else to occupy them, Banai approaches the boxy device.

Blood all over the place.

FOCUS. Focus, focus; they are not going to have a flashback right now.

Bosques was a decent guy. A bumbling wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly type.

Banai never found common ground with him.

With one boot, they shove the chair out of the way and lean over the q-comm. It looks ‘off,’ no flashing lights or anything of the like. Off or broken. Banai pokes at the various buttons and twirls the various knobs. Nothing happens. They decide to hold off on hitting the thing unless they remember more useful information about quantum mechanics. Not likely.

Unfortunately, there aren’t any tiny and incriminating blisters on the machine’s non-existent skin.

“What am I doing?” they mutter. They aren’t smart enough for this stuff. They have to trust the captain. They’re not smart enough not to.

Gonna be hard to eat with the blood splatter getting up in their face.

Hard to eat knowing that who/whatever killed two people on _the Skeld_ is out there and can maybe-possibly-probably-given-their-luck get to Banai here in the locked communications room, and they have no idea who the whatever is or why or how or any kind of weapon besides their twist-fingered hands that have always been ‘just okay enough’ at throwing a punch.

All they’ve got is a lot of disconnected facts. If they’d ever been good at things like logic puzzles, they’d never have signed up with the first military recruiter to cross their path and they could’ve gone back to school instead of turning merc after the Alsace-1 fiasco, but here they are now with just enough smarts to assemble, maintain and fire a semi-automatic assault rifle, the moral laxity to shoot it at whatever target they’re given and absolutely no fucking clue where to point it without anybody ordering the shot.

Also they don’t have an assault rifle or even an LTL pistol, so there’s no shooting this problem anyways.

The captain’s probably clever enough to figure it all out. Before it’s too late.

Assuming the captain isn’t behind everything.

And the captain can’t be because that would just be too shitty, so Banai has to trust them for the sake of… sanity, or whatever.

Now they just have to figure out what to do with 72+ hours of flight time with no responsibilities, no tea, no video games, no library of classic comedies.

-

The PA is still working. They’d screw around with it if they were a noisier kind of petty.

-

Finally, they open a locker and discover Bosques’s stash. It takes longer to find a pencil with an eraser that isn’t either chewed too much to look at without wincing or dried to the point of brick-hood.

-

Four hours. Turkey sandwich in one hand lodged next to a book of crosswords, pencil stub in the other. Cross-legged on the floor. Wow, is this the life? Probably not. 32 Across: _Successful sci-fi horror franchise_. Five letters.

-

Focused hard enough, they can block out the ship’s humming. And it’s nice to line up letters, to fit everything neatly into a puzzle, but it’s infernally frustrating to leave blank holes, bullet holes in a perfect framework because Banai doesn’t know the name of some tennis star or whether a word is spelled with ‘a’ or ‘e.’ Stupid puzzles, puzzles, why couldn’t Bosques have been a comics geek?

Banai’s too grit-jawed over a handful of clues to think about dead people and almost too much to think about how hungry they are. It’s only been a few more hours, but MIRA’s sandwiches aren’t exactly something to write home about.

The tiny letters are starting to make their eye sockets ache.

-

The door opens, and if it isn’t someone with a hot meal, or really, just as long as it isn’t someone here to kill them—

Gbeho’s round eyes peer at them. She says, “Capt. Wei is dead.” She didn’t even bring a snack.

But, well, at least the captain wasn’t the killer.

-

Banai helps Praga with the body again. There’s streamers of blood drying down the captain’s cheeks and throats. Eyes, nose, lips, ears. “Did their brain melt?”

Praga’s mouth twitches before they heave the captain’s legs up a little higher.

Yarrow is consoling Roy in the hallway. She mercifully pulled him out of sight before Gbeho led Banai onto the scene.

Gbeho herself is presently standing with her palms locked on the copilot seat. She laughs a kind of weird moan. The pose makes her look like an old-fashioned general’s portrait, leaning predatory over the war table, but the expression looks like an anti-military piece. The only thing she’s leaning over is one of Bosques’s discarded crosswords on the dash. “Did their brain melt, Dr. Purple?”

“No,” they answer gruffly. Gruffer from the air that puffs out of their lungs as they drop their load onto the gurney.

“What happened?” Banai asks. Their hands slide out from underneath the captain’s shoulders. More blood on the cuffs of their flight suit now.

“Great news, if you thought I did well on the first two autopsies, just wait til you see how well I do now that I’m all warmed up.”

“No. I mean. _What happened_?”

Praga and Gbeho share a glance. “We were together,” the former says.

“So Roy or Yarrow did it?”

“They were together, too,” Gbeho says.

“The whole time?”

“Yes.”

Praga mutters, “So they say.”

Gbeho sounds small when she says, “Maybe, maybe it’s an accident.”

“Ha, doubtful.”

“You did say, back in elec, that anything can happen in space.”

“I said anything can happen _once_. Twice? Three times? Someone is out to get us. And I know it’s not me, and it can’t be you, and—” their eyes linger on Gbeho “—it can’t be you, either. Who does that leave? Red, that washed-up, chunk-faced, patch-beard—”

“What about Yarrow?”

“What do you have against Yellow? She wouldn’t do something like this.”

Banai shrugs. They pick at the budding bloodstain on one of their cuffs.

“Can we have another meeting?” Gbeho asks.

“Guess we have to.” Banai plucks the clipboard from the dash. It’s the schedule for the rest of the flight, covered in handwritten edits and a scattered few drops of blood.

-

At the meeting, Yarrow and Gbeho sit on either side of Mr. Roy. Buffers. Praga rolls their fingers on the table. Banai flips through the schedule, trying to make sense of anything.

“Who’s in charge now?” Praga asks.

 _Fwit_. Next page.

Yarrow clicks her tongue. “What do you mean _who’s in charge_?”

“Exactly what I said.”

“What does that even matter at this point?”

“There’s more problems with the network,” Banai says, “so we’ll need to transfer data between the different terminals by hand. We can use our receivers and… some co-uh… axial, coaxial cables? Do we have those?” Red nods solemnly, still scowling. Yarrow nods like she’s not listening. _Fwit, fwit_. “The engines need refueling. The shields are down _again_.”

“I am,” Roy says. “I have seniority.”

“I don’t trust you,” Praga grits.

“What!”

Banai rolls their downcast eyes.

“Lt. Black, then?” Gbeho suggests.

They stop themself from looking back up.

“No! No, no, no, you can’t put them in charge!”

“But they’re the only one we can for sure trust at this point.”

“Dr. Yarrow, please, say something!”

“I’m staying out of this,” she says.

Praga says, “They were locked in comms, Red.”

“You have to stop panicking, Mr. Red.”

“You guys need to panic more!”

“That’ll get us nowhere,” Yarrow says.

“If Mr. Roy has seniority,” all eyes spear Banai now, “then he’s in charge.”

Praga’s mouth curls until a few teeth are showing. Gbeho nods; Yarrow shakes her head.

Red says, “Is that supposed to make me trust you?”

Banai just doesn’t want responsibility over this. Any of it. Anymore of Red’s outbursts. They set the clipboard on the table and slide it over to him.

“Because I don’t.” The navigator flicks over the pages. His furrowed brow seems to tilt slowly but surely out of anger and into concentration. The table waits in silence.

Until Praga breaks it. “Can I run the autopsy now, _sir_?”

“Yeah. Do that.” _Fwit, fwit._

“Should we,” Gbeho says, “should we keep the buddy system?”

It takes a moment for Red to respond. He raises his head up from the schedule, and the rage has slid right off his face. He looks a bit like Bosques now. “I think so.” Overwhelmed. “Black. You’re Purple’s buddy.”

Banai gives him their boredest look.

His squirm manifests in pursed lips and hunched shoulders.

When Wei’s corpse is on the examination table, Banai posts themself on one of the bunks, one leg over their knee and back slant toward the wall to keep an eye on the door and the proceedings simultaneously. As Praga sets their tools out, they ask, “Any ideas?” not sure if they mean ‘On what happened?’ or ‘On what happens next?’

“Some kind of poison or toxin. Bacteria, fungus? I’m not committing to anything until I’ve cracked them open and taken some samples. This is all extremely fucked.”

The bags containing Oe and Bosques’s corpses are laid out on the opposite bunks. Lightweight black shrouds. Don’t run the risk of transparency. Hide the multi-piece-ness of Oe’s remains.

Dr. Praga gives the captain’s corpse a thorough examination. They make comments here and there, but most of it means nothing to Banai. Only that the doctor says the word ‘coagulation’ more times than Banai would like to hear. But they’re only half listening anyways, ears tuned to the hallway. At one point, the other group passes by, peering in turn into the medbay like a bunch of gawkers at a public dissection. Only they’re looking more at Banai and Praga. But they don’t linger.

“Going to fix some things!” Gbeho calls as she trots by.

Banai can’t muster the capacity to nod back.

At last, Praga zips the captain’s body into another black bag. For a moment, they bow over the table, fingers curled. Then they sigh and turn and try to make eye contact with Banai who isn’t looking. “Welp,” they say, but go on when that doesn’t seem to grab Banai’s attention either, “I’m out of body bags.” They cross their arms, lean against the examination table. They glance at the empty bunk between themself and Banai. “I’m out of places to put them. I’m not… huh. If you’d asked me a week ago, ‘Is three body bags enough for one run?’ I would have told you, ‘No, it’s overkill.’”

Banai is watching the blood samples spin in the analyzer.

“Okay, bad phrasing.”

This was supposed to be an easy job. Sitting with some tea, watching security footage to make sure no one was stealing pens or rations or pain killers. Now it’s a murder mystery? That their dumb ass is supposed to solve?

“I think I’ll see if I can adjust the security cameras. They’re honestly not that useful as they’re positioned at this point.”

“Should I come with you?”

“I guess.”

“Safety in numbers and all that.”

“Buddy system.”


	4. Chapter 4

The two of them dig out a screwdriver and ladder. “I’ll spot you,” Praga offers, which Banai hardly needs, and they say as much.

“Can’t be too careful. Where would we be if you broke your neck?”

Banai gives them a Look™ (so many looks lately—it’s arduous), and Praga laughs stilted and looks away. They get to carry the ladder for that.

A crate in storage has replacement camera parts, including lenses. Banai holds one box that says 35mm, another that says 20mm. “If the number’s smaller, that means the field of view is wider, right?”

Praga looks aghast.

“No?” Does that look mean no?

“You know better than me.”

They don’t.

Over the course of the next hour, Banai climbs the ladder, Praga holds the ladder, Banai unscrews, twists a camera, un- and re-scrambles a camera, twists a camera into a new position, Praga tries to say something nonchalant and normal. Have you been to New Ghana? Breakfast on _the Skeld_ is miserable. The _Alien_ movies. Yes, who hasn’t seen an _Alien_ movie?

Time would be better spent if Praga watched the feed in sec and shouted about whether or not things were working, but the doctor clings to the ladder and won’t let up. Fine. Buddy system. For buddies.

The two of them address the last camera outside administration, and Banai kicks the ladder into a better position than where Praga deposited it. As Banai ascends and Praga again takes a not-so-firm grip, there’s the sound of the other group moving around somewhere in the stern.

Praga starts turning over their shoulders, taking little steps, leaning to get different angles.

“Nervous?” Banai asks as they feel out the head of the screwdriver into the thread of the screw.

“I want to make sure we’re alone.”

Hopefully not in an attempt to kill them while their arms are occupied.

They touch Banai’s thigh which makes them jerk. Praga jerks away, too, but doesn’t look apologetic. They look pissed when Banai shoots them a heated glance. “Green and I weren’t together the whole time.”

“What?”

“When the captain died. Was killed. Green went to the bathroom for a few minutes.”

“So you think she did it?”

“No. I waited outside the cabins for her. She was in there the whole time.”

“Why tell me that?”

“Let’s share information.”

“I don’t have anything useful.” Someone wanted to throw them out of an airlock. “I was doing crosswords in comms.”

“You found two bodies.”

They slip the screwdriver between their teeth, yank at the camera.

“Didn’t you see anything? Was anyone nearby?”

They review the facts. Again. How they didn’t want to say anything after Oe. How Gbeho and Yarrow had been the closest by. How surely those two weren’t capable of it. Who was?

Banai just shakes their head.

“Lieutenant. If we pool our knowledge, our _skills_ , we can find a way to incriminate Red, and we can lock him up, and—”

Banai stabs a screw back into place. “Red.”

“ _Yes_! Trust me, it has to be him.”

“I don’t trust any of you.”

“That’s imbecilic. Me? You don’t trust me? If I’m the killer, why are you still alive?”

The head skitters out of the threading as Banai tightens it past tightening.

“I don’t. Kill. People! I took an oath. The hippocratic one. Maybe you’ve heard of it.”

And what do they call killer doctors? ‘Angels of death.’ There are doctor serial killers. Three bodies, three. We’re at three. “ _Shit_.” A screw tumbles out of their fingers and bounces off of Praga’s upturned cheek, and Banai sees this happen and doesn’t realize they’re fumbling with the screwdriver, snatching at it as it falls, missing, watching it land on Praga’s nose.

“The fuck!”

They’re about to apologize out of reflex when Gbeho appears from storage with Yarrow and Roy in tow. “Hello, friends,” she says, expression struggling to maintain a modicum of cheer.

Banai notes that everyone is presently alive.

Praga rubs the bridge of their nose. Their fingers come away bloody. “Fuck you.” They glare.

“Are you alright, Purp?” Yarrow asks.

“I’m _fine_.”

Banai mutters, “Sorry. Can you hand me those?”

Praga glares further while Gbeho plucks up the fallen screw and tool and hands them over. She looks at Banai curiously, hopefully, and they just nod. She says, “We were on our way to get some sleep.”

Between daubs of the ever-incarnating bead of blood on their face, Praga’s gaze flits to Roy. “Red. Just. Slept!” It’s been maybe twelve hours (two bodies) since Banai woke up in Green’s bunk. It’s been slightly less than that since Roy trudged back into the caf at the news of Bosques’s death.

Yeah, Red just slept. Banai almost feels guilty for the two and half hour hypnotic-induced blackout they’re running on.

Gbeho sighs. “Dr. Yellow can’t keep going. And me either. We need to rest.”

“You can keep Mr. Roy with you if you’d like,” Yarrow offers.

“No!” both Red and Purple answer.

Banai sits back on the ladder.

Praga steps toward Yarrow who tuts, “What happened to your face?”

Praga says something very quietly, and Yarrow rolls her eyes. “It’s fine. Come on, Green, Red.” She leads the group toward the caf.

As he passes, Praga gives Roy a distinct I’m-watching-you glower, which he doesn’t notice because he’s leveling a similar one at Banai.

No one says a word until the last pair of feet climbs into the cabins.

Praga says, “We should keep watch so they can get some sleep.

“Can we please finish the cameras?”

Praga doesn’t answer.

“Did I break your nose?”

“No.” They look up, glare sizzling into a rather pitiful wince. Banai almost misses the complacent smile that until recently plastered their face at every waking moment. “It’s going to bruise, isn’t it?”

It’s definitely going to bruise. Banai shrugs.

-

“I’m worried about Yellow.”

Banai’s fingertips skim the rows of boxes. They just had the damn crate out. Wasn’t it this row?

There’s an empty port in storage that should hold another camera. Hopefully it’s empty due to negligence (MIRA standard) rather than faulty equipment (the other MIRA standard). Banai can solder frayed wires, but anything worse than that and they’ll be SOL.

The lighting in storage is always eye-strain dim. Banai is definitely going to need reading glasses in the near future (now would be better), but they locate the barcode for the proper container and slide it free.

“I said I’m worried about Yellow.”

“Okay.”

“Should we check on her?”

“I want to finish this.”

Aside from the caf, storage is the biggest room on the ship. But unlike the caf’s wide, open hungry-stomach loneliness, storage is cramped like intestines with crates, canisters, etc.

“Do you want to take a break, doctor?”

“Fucking kind of.” They hoist themself on top of a low crate and crisscross applesauce. “I’ve performed three autopies within 24 hours. What am I, a mortician? We need to check on those blood samples after this.”

And check in sec that the camera is hooked up right. “What about Yellow?” But Praga needs sleep. Tired, ragged people. They do bad work and make bad decisions.

“She can come, too.”

“And leave Gbeho alone with Red?”

“Fuck you,” they say, more grumble than venom. They rub at their nose again. Purple bruise for purple-tag doctor.

“When was the last time you slept?” Banai asks.

“Uh-huh.” They run a hand through their limp brown hair.

It’s very quiet. Banai listens for the hum but can’t pull it out of the generalized silence. Praga’s boot toes thumping on the heavy plastic crate, their own hand shuffling through transparent packages of loose wires, individual camera units, screws.

“What’s the weirdest thing you’ve seen?”

Banai lifts their head.

“Well?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Must be pretty bad then.”

It’s Oe’s torso and guts followed by a distant second: everything turned pink for about half a minute when they were on a run between Takeda-Yamaguchi and Lansing-α. So weird, so interesting. Weirder things happen planetside, inside people. Like a certain colonel who said, “Shoot,” and the empty within Banai that listened, complied, wasn’t bothered for four and a half months before they woke up in a dead panic and darkness and vomit and tears. Weirder things like did you know ducks have corkscrew penises or some early vaccines were just made of pulverized ticks or the most commonly shoplifted book is the Christian Bible or sometimes dismembered feet wash up on beaches, still be-socked, still be-shoed because sharks or something weird, weird, weird.

“Is it bad?” Praga presses.

“Yeah.” They toss the pieces onto the floor before resealing the crate.

Praga holds the ladder one more time. They obviously can’t stop thinking. Banai takes a moment to appreciate having a task that occupies them mind and body, that will produce results. Assuming the port is functional. Maybe when Banai has finally paid off their debt and they retire, they’ll take up crosswords. Wear reading glasses. Planetside with wi-fi so they can look up the names of all the stupid tennis stars they don’t know.

“Who is that? Who’s coming?”

The downside of numbing into focus is that you don’t notice the painful world around you so clearly. Makes it harder to keep it from hurting you.

Banai listens, all good thoughts slipping back into hiding. Their grip curls tight around the screwdriver, backhand. Punches are better with steel spikes.

Footsteps.

Not very subtle ones, though they’re trying to be. Banai hones in on them instantly, spots Red’s gauzy shadow before the man himself appears from behind a row of boxes. His arms are up. Outstretched. In front of his face. He’s holding the gun.

“Purple,” he says lowly. His voice is tamped-down quiet, about to boil over. “Step away from Black.”

“No way,” the doctor says, indignant. But they’ve already stepped aside. The ladder trembles as they release it. “You can’t get both of us. Not with that thing.”

He probably can. Even if it can’t technically kill them. Praga doesn’t know how bad it hurts.

“I don’t WANT both of you. Stay out of the way, Purple.”

Banai uses the voice they’d use if they were armed. “Where did you find that?” They are armed. A screwdriver. Yes, that’ll do a lot in this situation.

“It was banging around. In the vents. I got it out of the vents.”

Banging around? _In the vents?_ “Put it down, Roy.” They make themself use his name.

“I can’t.”

“Did you steal it?” Praga demands. “Where the hell is Yarrow?”

“Purple, doc, please, we can kill them, we can stop this.”

Yarrow probably has some kind of training for talking people down in violent situations. If MIRA funded the training, it’s just as well that she’s asleep. And hopefully not dead.

“You’re insane, Red.”

“I’m not! I want to survive! I want to make it home! Please! Doc, you’ve gotta believe me!”

“It’s not me. Put the gun down.”

“No! You killed Blue, you killed Cap!” It’s the look in Red’s eye. He isn’t a cold killer. A hot one. Hot. Ah, shit.

Dropping the screwdriver, Banai lifts their hands and arms up to protect them. Stupid, useless idea.

The burn ignites through their knuckles, through their palms, through the back of their head. They scream or wail or gasp; they don’t hear it but sink to their knees, huddle into smaller-target-ness.

The heat keeps coming.

Ah, they’re on the floor. There’s shouting.

The heat stops but doesn’t. It’s in them.

They can’t see.

No shit, their eyes are closed. But every time they notice this, they forget how to open them again.

Ah, ah.

The pain fades in the wake of a bone-deep throb, like hugging a goddamn sun. It takes a moment for their brain to accept that it’s over. Their muscles are trembling. The idea of movement hurts though the twitches in their fists and joints as they uncurl and are mercifully _soft_. Fresh flesh after pain.

They start when something slides into their shoulder. Stretching their lungs with a shuddering breath, they blink and find the pistol there. Their ears start listening.

Scuffling? Dragging? Beeping? What’s beeping?

They can’t think of anything to shout. They’re supposed to get Purple’s—Red’s?— attention, right? They really don’t want anymore attention right now.

They stagger to their feet first try but can’t quite scoop the pistol up before they recognize the sound.

It’s the trash dump. The airlock.

Fuck.

That’s bad.

Right? That’s bad. They get the gun in hand, mostly, barely clutching it up to their chest, and dive around some boxes to get things in view. Mostly.

Praga is at the release lever, and Roy is _nowhere_ , which is Not Good. But doesn’t make sense because then he’s in the…? Aren’t there! Failsafes for this kind of thing? It’s not supposed to make sense. Banai isn’t supposed to make sense of things, they’re just supposed to _shoot, goddamn you_ right as Yarrow charges up from nowhere and the wave hits Praga’s back and they slump and scream and one of these actions hits the lever and it switches and there’s the grating sound of _the Skeld_ opening its mouth to vomit out a human being (Are there not? Failsafes!?) and somewhere in there Yarrow wails, “What the fuck!” at something, something of so many things that are happening.

Praga twitches on the ground. Yarrow runs and slides to them.

Banai drops the gun, and it falls, and they’re on their ass.

God, they hate getting hit with one of these things.

Somewhere out in the vacuum of space, Mr. Roy is drifting in and out through death.

-

Yarrow is just sobbing at this point.

There’s a pile of cookies on the table.

“I can’t fucking take this. Jesus Christ. Christ.”

Praga can be accurately described as shell-shocked. A classic thousand-yard stare hangs on their face.

Gbeho has only been awake for about five minutes. She’s rubbing Yarrow’s back numbly. Any attempt at cheer has completely washed away. She has the sort of impassive stare of a Pre-Raphaelite beauty. Like the artist couldn’t quite figure out how to make a convincing expression without marring something so preciously pretty.

Banai explained what happened, and Praga nodded along. They didn’t deny anything. It was all self-defense. Extreme self-defense.

Red had the pistol. Red shot Black. Purple tackled Red. Purple had the pistol. Purple shot Red. Purple shoved Red out like so much trash because apparently ejecting your problems is the best solution.

Honestly, Banai can’t argue with that.

Black had the pistol. Black shot Purple. Yellow nearly curbstomped Black.

“It’s over,” Praga says with finality rather than relief.

Banai sure as hell hopes so.

“Why’d he do it?” Gbeho asks.

“He was crazy,” Praga says.

“Don’t say that, Purp,” Yarrow says.

Praga’s stare comes into focus on her.

She chokes, “You didn’t have to kill him.”

The stare goes down to the table.

“Well, they did,” Banai says. The post-adrenaline shake in their legs is still kicking. They’re trying to decide if they had been afraid for their life at any point. Afraid enough to care. It’s transit hour 5:05:22:00. _The Skeld_ is due in at HQ at 7:01:15:00. Less than two days. To stay alive, stay afloat. Banai has made it more than four decades without dying, so that’s no problem _of course_. “We have work to do now.”

Yarrow sniffs. “How can you say that, Black! How can we just act like nothing has happened?”

“We have work to do.”

“Lt. Black is right,” Gbeho says softly. “If we want to make it planetside in one piece, we still have to look after the ship.”

The captain’s clipboard is lying on the table. Banai flips the pages idly. Gbeho left checkmarks as she and Yarrow and Roy went about their tasks.

Praga murmurs, “The blood sample.”

“Which?” Gbeho asks.

“I’d like to check it now.”

Gbeho peers at Banai, who sighs when they realize Purple isn’t going to explain anything. “It’s from the captain’s autopsy. We still don’t know the cause of death.”

Yarrow ruffles.

“Can we stick together?” Gbeho asks.

Banai huffs. “For now.”

The analyzer has isolated a bacterium. Gbeho is the one who preps a slide for the microscope. She quirks her lips and winks one eye and lowers her face. “Oh my god.” She looks up.

“What?” Yarrow asks, shaky.

“Did this kill Capt. White? Dr. Purple, did this kill them?”

“What!”

Gbeho slinks back.

Yarrow shoves Banai aside to get a look in the microscope. “What is this?” she demands. She offers Banai a chance at the station.

Everything is pink. (Lansing-α). Tiny, fuzzy, fumbled star shapes are writhing on a paler pink background. “Green,” Banai says gently, “do you know what this stuff is?”

She’s staring at a wall, mouth set. “It’s my bacteria.”

“From the rocks?”

She nods. “But it couldn’t have killed anyone.”

“Do dead bacteria normally move around this much?” Banai asks.

She turns back, flings her arms wide. “This doesn’t explain… Orange! Or Blue!”

Praga suddenly speaks, “Why are you so defensive?”

“I’m not! It’s my project, and it’s been dead for thousands of years, and it’s harmless. It couldn’t have _done_ this.”

“Could it have been…?” Banai can’t think of the technical term.

“Dormant,” Praga provides. Like volcanoes.

“No! I mean, I don’t think so! This is just like Lt. Black and the gun. Someone is trying to confuse us.”

“Who?”

“I trust you, Green,” Yarrow says. She puts a hand on Gbeho’s back, and the latter slinks into her arms.

Banai turns to Praga. “Could this possibly be what killed the captain?”

“I don’t know,” they answer. There’s no indignation or spite, just exhaustion.

“No!” Green says as Yarrow gives her shoulder a squeeze.

“If there’s a chance,” Banai says, “we should eject the sample.”

“No!”

Banai tries their softest voice, “It might have killed the captain.”

“But it didn’t! This is my discovery, it’s a huge discovery.”

“Is it worth your life?”

She really wants to say yes. Her lips go tight, her front teeth show. “It’s in the captain’s blood. Are you going to eject them, too?”

Praga glances at the body bag.

“Purple!” Yarrow gapes. “What is _wrong_ with you!?”

“Nothing.” Their eyes shoot back to the group, half-focused. “We need to sanitize. I’ll run a chem purge through O2. Everyone should go shower and change.”

“You’re going to eject White!”

“I won’t.”

“Lieutenant, do something!”

“I’ll watch Dr. Praga while you two sleep.”

“No, you have to stay with Green and me.”

“Why?” If Red was the killer, there’s no need to watch each other’s backs anymore. If the bacteria was the killer, back-watching won’t accomplish much.

“Lieutenant,” Praga says, “stay with them. I’ll sleep in med.”

“With the bodies?” Gbeho asks.

“Lock me in if you want. I killed someone,” _and saved you_ , “so I guess I deserve it.”

Banai glances at Yarrow who gives them a firm nod. Gbeho will only make eye contact with the microscope.

They rub their upper arm. They didn’t land well coming off the ladder.


	5. Chapter 5

Praga draws blood from each of them. “You’ve got shitty veins,” they comment blandly on Banai’s turn. Doctor’s care deeply about veins.

The samples go into the analyzer. A trip to O2 (Yarrow won’t say a word to Praga) proves awkward and tense. A few minutes later and the air smells like plastic and synthetic orange. Praga gets first shower, and Banai escorts them hair-still-wet to med while the other two doctors wait for the shower to reset.

Dr. Praga is standing in front of the analyzer. Their mouth is flat and ugly as a scar. Banai glances at the one empty body bag-less bunk and locks the door.

When Gbeho comes out of the head and it’s just the two of them in the hall, she starts talking. Banai is aware of this outside their own body. Numb, numb, numb, quit dissociating all the time; it accomplishes nothing. They finally zone back in at, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“I don’t want to lose my research.”

Fuck research. “I know.”

And she beams.

During their own turn in the shower (two showers in 24 hours? What luxury), they review the facts. Again. Capt. Wei might have died from an ancient space bacteria that makes you leak your brains. Wet. Oe and Bosques definitely did not unless the bacteria also bursts your guts in two and slits your throat. Lather. Roy might have killed the two of them. Rinse. Banai really doesn’t think he killed them. Towel.

Shit, they don’t have a fresh flight suit.

They really _hope_ he killed them and that Praga was justified and that no one else will turn up dead, but there’s more here because _how do you tear a man in two in electric_?

Who is (was) closest in size? The captain. God keep them, but Banai needs their suit more than they do right now.

Purple killed Roy. Maybe Purple killed everyone. Was just trying to pin things on Mr. Roy now that they can’t pin it on Banai anymore. The hollowed-out woe-for-I-have-killed-a-man all just an act.

Yellow was quick to throw Purple under the bus. And she chased Roy into storage but didn’t stop him. ‘Couldn’t stop him.’ That’s just a shade of difference, of perspective, of truth-splitting.

Green has the bacteria. She’s defensive of her precious discovery. Protective, maybe even batshit levels of protective. Maybe she’s just a scientist. Maybe a lot of things.

The captain’s flight suit fits. But this definitely isn’t their color. They tie the sleeves around their waist

They thread their own belt through the loops. The filled holster is Banai’s security blanket. They pat it tiredly before climbing back into the hallway.

Yarrow and Gbeho are talking in the berth the latter shares with Banai. Their lips curl when they see Yellow sitting on their bunk.

She gives them an apologetic smile, the kind that probably got her far in high school. “Ah, would it be alright if I stay in here?”

Banai looks defensively at their bunk, but she quickly skitters over to Gbeho’s side.

“I’m fine with it,” Gbeho says. She yawns and stretches (Degas this time) and lies back on her pillow. She presses herself toward the wall to leave room for Yarrow.

“I just don’t want to be… Is it alright?”

Banai shrugs. They try to keep it from looking too lone-wolf agitated.

“Why are you wearing the captain’s clothes?” Gbeho asks.

“They fit.”

“You look nice.”

Yarrow laughs. It’s strained and awkward. “Are you _really_ alright with me staying in your berth, Green?”

“I just meant you look like you should be in charge.”

“She means you’ve nice arms, lieutenant.”

“Oh my god, Yellow.”

Banai sniffs and turns and pretends to straighten their army-regulation straight bedding. “I’m glad you’re feeling well enough to joke.”

Yellow laughs again, and there’s a series of sounds that seem to be Gbeho kicking her, her gasping and slapping Gbeho’s foot away. She asks, “Do you have the gun?”

Banai shifts so their hip is turned to her.

“Thank god.”

Gbeho stares at the sidearm for a moment before rolling away, onto her side, hugging her pillow.

Banai sits down on their bunk. Yellow is looking right at them. Her ankles are crossed just like she’s about to give them a full psych eval. Banai presses their stare, lowering their head, and Yellow falters, draws her legs up underneath her.

This is pointless.

They lay out on the bunk, making sure to slip the gun into their hand surreptitiously. Clutch that safety blanket. With their free hand, they dim the lights. They face the other bunk but close their eyes.

Several minutes pass. It sounds like Yellow is following suit, but Banai doesn’t peek.

Several more minutes pass. Gbeho’s breathing shifts.

“Are you really going to sleep?” Yellow asks in the near-dark.

Banai just grunts.

A long pause. “I’m too nervous to sleep.”

They wonder if this is an unspoken, ‘Please stay awake for another x-number of hours so I can have a little security,’ but certainly aren’t going to ask.

“Well, try.”

“How could Dr. Praga do this?”

“It was self-defense.”

“No, no, how could they do _all of this_? I think… I think it was them, lieutenant.”

“Okay.”

“I understand your levity is likely some sort of defense response, but I need your support right now, Black.”

Banai finally concedes to opening their eyes. Yarrow is facing them, cheek against her palm. It’s the dictionary definition of ‘intently.’ They ask, “How did Mr. Roy get the microwave pistol?”

She breaks eye-contact. “I don’t know.” She eases off her palm and sits cross-legged again.

“He said he found it in the vents.” It’s a weird lie if it’s a lie. Maybe he just had to think of something that wasn’t plucking it straight off of Banai’s belt.

“I heard him doing something and ran out after him. I didn’t think...”

Weird, weird, weird.

“I can’t think at all anymore. I need to sleep.”

“Have you heard of St. Elmo’s fire?” It’s the first thing they can come up with.

For a moment, her face bunches, but then she relaxes, thankful for a change of subject. “I think so. It’s some kind of atmospheric phenomenon. Ball lightning or something like that? Am I close?”

“Sure.”

“Why do you ask?”

“I just know it was something bright and flashy that travelers used to see. They said it was good luck. I’ve been on runs with people who called all the weird things they saw ‘St. Elmo’s fire,’ but it’s an older term, I guess.”

“Elmo was the patron saint of sailors. Martyred in a nasty way if I remember correctly.”

Banai raises an eyebrow for clarification.

“Lapsed Catholic.” She shrugs and ducks her head as if by way of apology. Probably for the Catholic part more than the lapsed part. Since Banai is lapsed, too, lapsed before ever committing to it, really, because things like (upper case) Belief felt too rotting-old by the time Banai was born, a cynic in the womb who still won’t eat ham in the cultural sense but can’t quite not (lower case) believe in something bigger, better, nicer and Its five-step plan for Becoming a Good (not just ‘Not Terrible,’ not just ‘Better,’ but actually ‘Good, Just and Wise’) Human Being. Even if they don’t eat that plan, just as long as the alternative doesn’t have any pig flesh, and bless Red for that turkey sandwich; is that what humanity is? Respecting someone’s dietary restrictions/preferences/whims even when that someone (you think) is a killer?

“Entrails pulled out? Something like that.” Her expression wavers. She lifts a hand over her mouth. “I thought those sorts of stories were hilarious when I was a kid. Haha, gore. Brains are funny things, aren’t they? They don’t cope well with much.”

“Guess not.”

“I’ve been on a lot of runs with Praga.”

“Okay,” Banai says, full autopilot.

“I wanna be surprised, Black, I really do.”

“Are you serious?” flat half-growl.

“Am I a bad psychologist?”

Yes, for many reasons Banai probably isn’t even aware of yet aside from all the ones they are already far too tired of.

“But I was _friends_ with them. Everything they said about Red, White… And HQ... They just went postal, and I completely missed it coming. Thank god you locked them up, thank god.” She trails off as Banai desperately tries to block her out but can only keep hearing her say ‘ _Everything in this room is confidential_ ’ and picturing her flash through a dozen different smiles and really wonder if it will be safe to go to sleep. “Thank god for you. You’re a saint.”

“Laying it on pretty thick.”

“What?” She didn’t hear.

“Go to sleep, Yellow.”

Her brow furrows. “I need some medication.” She dives a hand into one of the pockets of her flight suit. She prises a small bottle free. “I have more if you’d like some.” She holds it up. It’s a shot of spiced whisky.

“No thanks.” The warm feeling at seeing her with contraband is much better than any alcohol.

Yarrow unscrews the cap and dumps the contents down her throat. Shakes her head, runs a hand through her fresh-combed hair. “St. Elmo’s fire. Maybe we can get some of our own good luck.”

-

Though Yarrow does eventually fall asleep, Banai just lies on their back, checking their timepiece every sixteen to twenty-three minutes. Someone needs to stabilize the autopilot at about 5:09:00:00 anyways. No point going to sleep if they have to take care of that. And they’re still holding the pistol in their crossed arms. And ‘you can sleep when you’re dead,’ how many times have they heard that?

Blearily, they tuck the gun back in its holster and trudge down to the caf. While a cup of tea fills in the dispenser, they download some data from the wall terminal. Quiet beeping and pinging fill the sick yellow light. They rub their eyes.

The data has to be uploaded in admin. Tea in hand, they look down the hall to the dimness of storage.

They saw Green’s samples on the manifest earlier. Now’s the perfect time to pull out the crate and fire them into the void and fuck melting brainmatter.

Something stops them. Green’s face? It must be Green’s smile and they’re going soft, but it feels like a slug of vomit churning in their gut. They take a sip of their tea.

They stare and blink at the progress bar as the data uploads.

Nav is the only place on _the Skeld_ with windows. The blue regulation-calm-inducing light blurring off the various interfaces complements the black of space. That ever-present hum tingles their brain as they stiffly ease into the pilot’s seat.

Space is enormous. Humans generally avoid thinking about it. Banai has never found this a problem since looking at it just looks like looking at a black sheet. At nothing. Brains weren’t made to process it. The same way they don’t process death or misery on certain, lofty scales.

Steering stabilized.

The cushions creak as they lean back. It’s a comfortable chair.

The muscles in their arms crash, shoulders sink. Heavy, tired, frustrated and too fried to feel fearful. They lock the door from the interface then down the tea in three scalding gulps and set their timepiece for twenty minutes. Spin the pilot seat around, face the door, draw the pistol, cross their arms, close their eyes and _will themself_ into oblivion.

-

The blue is too bright. The main lights are off. The orange scent is going strong.

“The hell?” They check their timepiece. The alarm went off twenty-five minutes ago. It’s not surprising they were more tired than they thought, mostly because now they’re too tired to be surprised by anything.

They grope the flashlight off of their belt and drag their feet until it feels like they’re walking instead of crawling. An overshot power nap is the most soul-suckingly debilitating thing they can think of. They never did brush their teeth, did they?

As awful as the yellow of the caf always is, it’s downright spooky when it’s pitch black. The flashlight beam prowls across all the empty tables, casting dark shadows onto the murky tiled floor. Emergency lights would be nice, but apparently MIRA cut another corner on that one.

When they climb up to the cabins, feet pounding the steps, pounding into their head, there’s a tiny scream.

They halt, heart winces. But before adrenaline can kick in for the nth time on this run, someone calls, “Who is it?” That’s Green’s voice.

“Banai.” Obviously.

“Okay!” A pause. “Sorry, that was Yellow. Can you see anything?”

They take a few steps and shine the flashlight beam up to their berth.

“Thank goodness!”

“Christ, Black,” Yellow says, sleep-hoarse. “You’re gonna give me a heart attack.”

“Likewise.”

They step into the berth. Yarrow and Gbeho shield their eyes in the light. They’re both on the bunk. “ _Must you_ shine that in our eyes?” the former asks.

“Hold it steady,” Gbeho says. She reaches for the drawer underneath her bunk and pulls out a battery reading lamp. Its light is soft, almost cozy. Banai flicks the flashlight off.

“Black, where were you?” Yellow demands. Her knees are up at her chin. She’s rubbing her eyes.

“Nav.”

“What if something happened?”

“Like what?”

“Everything’s fine, Yellow, see?”

Yarrow sighs and uncurls and lays on the bed. “Four people are dead. That is the opposite of fine.”

Gbeho is putting her shoes on. Banai just watches.

In the silence, Yarrow’s gossip voice comes back, “So, what happened to the gun show?”

The what. Their head tilts as they try to process, looking at the pistol.

Gbeho tuts, “You’re making them uncomfortable!”

Ah, they’re talking about Banai’s arms. They pulled their sleeves back on at some point. It was a bit chilly in nav. They tug the cuffs lower. White’s suit feels strange, stiffer. Now they’re thinking about White.

“Did the… uh, lights wake you two up?” That wouldn’t really make any sense. Sleep taste in their mouth. Not as bad as the hypnotic. They swish some spit around.

“I was restless,” Gbeho admits.

“You kicked me.”

“What happened? Why _are_ the lights out?”

“I don’t know,” Banai says. But they do know: everything on _the Skeld_ is as well put together as a piece of preschool macaroni art.

“We should check to see if we can fix them.” She finishes the second lace.

“We don’t have to see to sleep,” Yellow says. “We can sort it later.”

Gbeho tosses her head to either side uneasily. “I want to do something productive.”

Yellow gives her a bitter look. “Fine. Then, Black, you should stay with me.”

“No.”

The bitterness goes fiery. “Why not!”

“I’m going with Gbeho.” And whether it’s whim or dislike or mistrust that guides this decision, they have no intention of telling Yellow.

“Fine,” she clips, and she throws herself back onto Gbeho’s bunk.

“Are you scared, Yellow?” Gbeho asks.

She just humphs and curls away and clutches her shoulders.

“Will she be alright?”

Gbeho is asking Banai this?

“Yellow, just remember that we’re safe now. Try to get some sleep. Please?”

“Okay.” She doesn’t look away from the wall.

Outside of the cabins, Gbeho says, “I think she’s messed up about Dr. Purple.”

And so much more. “Probably.”

Gbeho lifts up the lamp. She gestures toward storage. “Were you awake that whole time?”

Mostly, kind of, no. “Why?” Their steps echo empty.

“Did you check on Purple?”

“No.”

“And nothing… happened?”

“Just the lights.”

“Do you want to check on Purple now?”

“Later.” It’s only been four hours. They’re asleep, and the light’s are out, and can anyone on this ship—living or dead—ever focus on things that need _doing_ instead of panicking, worrying, caring? All those things just wear you out quicker, make you lag and fall behind and into the jaws of the enemy that much quicker.

Who the hell is the enemy?

Was it Purple? Was it Red? Not Green, not Yellow; nothing has happened since then...

“Okay,” Gbeho says. There’s a blush of cheerfulness in her voice again. “I’ll follow your lead, Lt. Black.”

Banai doesn’t tell her that’s a bad idea.

It still smells ever so faintly in elec. The dead smear is mixed with the chemical clean to produce an ineffable tar of aromas.

The main fuse box is near the entrance. Banai doesn’t like putting their back to the door, so they keep looking over their shoulder as they open the box and run their hands over the switches. Flipping the main breaker does nothing. Again, again, nothing, nothing.

“Something’s wrong.”

Gbeho fetches Mr. Oe’s toolkit. “The blood’s only on the outside,” she says.

“Do you know much about… this?” They gesture to the switches.

“Not a thing.”

Gbeho holds the light while Banai pries the main panel open. A panoply of color and coils is revealed, dozens of wires spooling from the fuse box into the wall—and about half of them are ripped in two.

Banai growls lowly.

“Wow!”

What did this? Yellow? “Is there a soldering iron in there?”

She starts shuffling. “What does it look like exactly?”

“I don’t know, like a soldering iron. Like a weird pen thing.”

“Is this it?” She holds out a screwdriver.

Banai is by nature a violent person. They always have been. Not out of anger or frustration but out of duty, apathy and apathy’s clinging lover: the need for something to be good at.

Her laugh is only half-unsteady. “Just kidding, here you go.”

Their fist untightens. They take the soldering gun.

It’s been a long time since Banai has fixed much of anything (physical or metaphorically, ha). Between the two of them, it takes the better part of twenty minutes to figure out what they’re doing, but eventually Banai finds themself plunged into the guts of wiring as Gbeho leans on her shoulder, lamp in one hand and the other fanning away smoke.

“Thanks for helping,” she says at length.

“Hm.”

“And for trusting me.”

They suppose that’s what this is. Or trusting her more than Yellow and Purple. They linger on her motive, her wild defense of her possibly-deadly space bacteria. “Okay, move the clamp.”

“Are we going to make it home?” She sets the lamp down to unhook the wires and set the next frayed pair in place.

“That’s the plan.”

“Good,” she says, and she slumps back against the way. “I want the world to know about my discovery. To feel even less alone. There’s so much out here! Is that okay? To share it?” She really waits for a response.

“Are you asking for permission?”

She shrugs.

They shake their head. Not to deny her this but simply out of disbelief. “Are aliens your specialty, Dr. Gbeho?” Their hands pry deeper into the wiring. Something tells them they’re missing a detail, that there’s more than all these broken arteries to repair.

“I wish! No, I took some biology courses when I was in undergrad, but it wasn’t really my thing.”

“So… rocks were.”

“Mm-hmm! My focus is exoplanetary geochronology. I wasn’t expecting to find something so… so!” And then she remembers, and her expression wilts.

“Heinously dangerous.” The wires embrace, melt, seal.

“Exciting. That’s what I was going to say.” She quirks her lips and looks like that kid sad at their dad again. Banai is not her parent. “But I have a longtime friend—um, colleague who’s in geobiology, and we’ve been corresponding about it to write a paper, and she’s sent me a lot of AMAZING studies.

“I know the galaxy is a huge place, but we’ve found so many signs of life in just the tiny piece we’ve explored. I just kept thinking there’s _got_ to be something bigger than bacteria out there. Tingting—my colleague—she says I think too big, that it’d probably just be vaguely intelligent mushroom or something, which is _cool_ , but what if there’s even more? What if, right?

“Okay, so that doesn’t interest you. Okay. Um, can I ask? Why did you get involved with space travel?”

The answer they tell themself. “To get away.”

“Oh. Sorry.” She doesn’t ask, ‘From what?’

“From everything. But it turns out people bring their bad decisions everywhere, and ‘the final frontier’ is no exception to that.”

Three immutable facts

1 humans are never getting their shit together

2 yes, even Dr. Gbeho can’t change that

3 space is a weird place to be, after all

“You work for NSPS, right?”

They nod.

“Aren’t they… bad guys?”

“Sure.” And MIRA doesn’t care who runs their security. How did a hotshot kid like Green get saddled with MIRA?

“I trust you, though, Lt. Black.” Her hand goes to theirs.

They slip free. “Don’t touch me, please.” People tend to respond better when you say please. The unarmed kind of people, anyways.

“Oh… sorry.”

So Gbeho is the one they finally decide to unload on. She’s too young and untouched by her own problems to dare scowl instead of offering a bit of sympathy. Banai has always avoided sympathy like the plague, but they’re anxious, fucked and tired as hell, so maybe a change of MO wouldn’t be a bad medication. Maybe if this kid forgives them, they’re not a total loss.

“I took up with NSPS because I needed the money.”

“Of course.”

“After… serving, I had a lot of medical debt.”

“Doesn’t the army pay for that sort of thing?”

“Yes. No. Not if you’re me.”

“I don’t care what your reasons are. I don’t think you’re a bad person, Banai.”

“Thanks, but I don’t really care if you do or not.”

Her lips twitch. “I just want to help you. I’m on your side now.”

“My ‘side,’ huh?”

For some reason, she looks a little sad. A saint’s expression this time. The sort of drab sorrow that radiates from Medieval illustrations where someone has a sword in the head, arrows in their chest, entrails spooling out like wires, like Oe’s guts just around the corner.

“Can you get the clamp again?”

There’s something in the corner of the fuse box, tangled behind the wires and pressed against some circuitry. Banai crooks their hand to reach.

“Sure. Do you know what you’re doing?”

Not fucking really. “Vaguely.” The thing snaps free, but it sounds like they broke something.

An alarm roars.

“What!” Gbeho jolts.

Banai’s brain cycles. “It’s O2.” What’s in their hand? Something plastic? Greasy, slimy?

“What do you mean it’s O2?”

“The oxygen’s going to… uh.” Shit. Fuck. What else can go wrong on this ship? “It’s for fire suppression.” Right? They’re so tired. Blue to blue, red to red, yellow—

“There’s a fire!?”

They shove it into their pocket. “Or another malfunction, so help me God. Come on.”

The two of them half-slide over the scattered tools.

They need to get to O2. No, to admin. No, to both of them. Banai remembers better that they weren’t paying attention during their safety training than they remember the training itself. They had tacos for lunch that day.

“Where are we going?” Gbeho shouts as she trundles behind Banai fast as they dare.

“Admin.”

The light doesn’t reach far into storage. Banai rams into a row of crates.

“Oh my god!”

“I’m fine.” Same shoulder as before. They skid ahead, tumble into the hall to admin and the door slams closed behind them. “What!” And Gbeho’s light with it.

There’s shouting, pounding, both muffled.

“Gbeho!”

A sound that must be, “Black!” or “Banai” or something that rhymes with one of those or has some of the same consonants or—They slump against the solid metal. The doors are as thick as the wall: dense and incredibly strong to protect against decompression or, or—

The alarm is still blaring.

They feel their way into admin as fast as they can. Heart tastes like metal in their mouth. The shitty carpet catches their toes, but that just means they’re closer. They bump into chairs, climb over them. Non-illuminating green displays pass. The O2 input is beneath their hands. Scrabbling through that goddamn alarm, they find the post-it note with the code. Glasses, please, they want to just be an old fart with glasses doing crosswords, no debt, no guns (at least no people to point them at). They eke out each number by the light of their timepiece. Their thumb stabs them in.

A chime.

Safe, safe.

They let their forehead fall onto the input.

The alarm.

Shit, not safe, not safe.

They dash out of the room, dodging the chairs that moments ago tripped them. Hand on the wall, they charge toward the caf but are met with another closed door.

What is happening?

They circle, feeling like a caged tiger, but the door into storage is open now.

 _What is happening_!

No sign of Gbeho’s lamp. But they prowl in and pick their way toward the bow. The door to comms is locked. It slides open with a hiss, which shivers down Banai’s spine like spider legs made of epidurals.

For a moment, they catch their breath.

Nothing comes out of comms. No one comes down the hall. They can’t hear anything but the alarm and the thick adrenal-beat in their ears. They are in front of comms, right? It’s so dark they can’t even tell if their eyes are opened or closed. The flashlight is lying amid the catastrophe of tools in elec, but Banai isn’t going back for it at this point.

The alarm stops mid-blare.

Gbeho must’ve gotten to O2.

They sink into a squat, hands rubbing at their face. Something pokes in their pocket. The plastic whatever that had been shoved in the fuse box. They snatch it out, press it to the light of their timepiece. It’s half of Purple’s fucking id tag. And it’s not grease; it’s blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *vague, murmured justification of missing windows for the Aesthetic*


	6. Chapter 6

It’s transit hour 5:12:02:47, and Lt. Banai is finally feeling the sick claw of loss in their stomach. You have to get over people being dead. You can’t linger on it. And you can’t let the death of a paycheck hold you back for more than a moment. That’s other paydays slipping out of your fingers.

Their thumb swipes over the tag. Blood. Feels like blood but doesn’t smell it. Blood and something else? The glow of their timepiece is too blue to make out the color. Smells like… nothing, really.

No smells like...

Sweat?

The back is thick _er_ than it should be, brazed and bumpy, like it’s fused with something. More plastic? Metal? Feels like more wires. But as they twist it up against their wrist and the timepiece, it _moves_.

“ _Shit_.”

They throw it into comms.

Their skin moves.

“SHIT.”

They wipe their hands on the floor, but they can still feel it. It swishes like rumpled silk over their skin (their muscles, their bones), and they wipe their hands furiously onto their flight suit. It’s their arms, too, so they claw up their sleeves, and something’s smearing beneath their palms. The blood from the nametag.

“Hello! Black!”

The lamp rounds the corner from shields.

Green is alive. Praise be to God. Yellow is, too. A little more praise be to God. Maybe. Purple...

“Black!” Green runs over like she wants to hug them but then stops and pulls the lamp up to her chest. “Are you okay? What happened?”

There’s dried smears of blood on their right arm beside the trails of fresher congealed stuff.

Yellow asks, half-plead in her voice, “Why is everything going haywire? What were you doing in electric?”

Fixing the lights. They peer into comms. The nothingness.

Green gives a little gasp. “Oh my god, we should check on Dr. Purple now. In med all alone during all this? Please, Black, please, Yellow.”

Yellow nods tightly, worrying her lip.

Banai doesn’t say anything. They clutch the stain in their hand. It doesn’t mean anything. Banai isn’t _supposed to make sense of things_. They’re suppose to get paid the right amount _on time_ , and they’re supposed to _shoot, goddamn you_ , and they’re supposed to watch the cams and make sure no one steals meds and drink some tea and watch a classic comedy not live inside fucking _Alien_.

Inside.

As Green and Yellow start to move, they finally whisper, “Should we fix the lights first?”

“I want to see Purple,” Gbeho says. “Please?”

It’s slow going through the dark. Solemn, funerary. Banai brings up the back. They’re done thinking. There’s no more thinking to be done. It’s just bad shadows in storage, bad shadows in the caf and the cold ticking of boot heels on the floor.

The three of them stare at the door to med. Banai does this dumbly. The other two anxiously.

“Can you… can you open it, Black?” Yellow asks.

They don’t want to (they don’t want to do anything right now), but they do.

Praga is half on the bunk. Legs askew, head thrust onto the floor with plenty of blood every which way. There’s a hole through their chest.

Big guns’ll do that. Big, weird guns.

Yellow tries to scream, but it comes out as a quavering gasp. She dives to Praga’s side and starts patting their face like that will rouse them.

“It’s okay,” Green soothes, coming up behind her. She sounds so gentle.

Yellow sobs some more.

Banai paces to the analyzer. The four blood samples are done. One is marked as containing an anomaly. They start to open the chamber. Praga color-coded the labels. Yes, there’s one with a purple dot, one with a yellow dot, the other two turned away, open up the plexiglass screen, and—

“It’s okay.”

An awful sound. A puncture. A hiss. A cry.

Banai watches as Yellow collapses. There’s a scalpel in her throat. They’re too tired to feel affronted. Too tired to feel more than shame or their empty stomach.

Tacos that day. Turkey sandwich. Tea...

There’s a particular painting of one of the Russian tsars after he’s killed his son. He has eyes like blown-glass. He doesn’t look like he has any eyebrows, just those glassy eyes and fear and regret if you know the story. And if you don’t know the story—

There’s a wisp of arterial spray on her face and collar when Dr. Gbeho looks at Banai and whispers, “I told you I’m on your side.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, be honest, did you see it coming from a mile away? ;) the final chapter is also pretty short, but i wanted to add one more scene to it, so i'll post tomorrow when i've finished


	7. Chapter 7

Is she fucking insane?

“Are you?”

“I am.”

“Are you insane?”

“I’m not.”

“Why did you kill her? Kill them?”

“Black, it’s just me now. You don’t have to pretend.”

“What, pretend _what_!”

“The bacteria.” She drops onto her backside. Her fingers splay out, her breath heaves. The lamplight spills from where it’s fallen on the floor, and Banai has the pistol at the ready now, steady between ten fingers. “Don’t you remember what we talked about?”

Remember, remember they’re trying to remember. Aliens are fascinating, Gbeho prefers _Alien_ , ‘I don’t think you’re a bad person.’

She looks into Banai’s loaded hands. “I know you—we had to do it, I just want to know the reason now. Can I please know? Do you know? It… speaks to you, right?”

Fucking “When? When did we talk?”

“You don’t remember.”

“What!”

“After White, you told me the… my… the bacteria infected White but something went wrong, and you, and it made you—you don’t…?”

“ _When_?”

“After White died. After Red. Outside the bathroom.”

They were dissociating. They weren’t talking. They were thinking about the dead kid, the fly-stuffed wound. They were thinking.

“But what I said then is true. I’ll do anything, just let me keep the dead sample.”

“You’re insane.”

“I’ll help you, I’ll get you wherever you want to go, whatever you need.”

“Why shouldn’t I shoot you?”

“You promised!”

“I didn’t promise you ANYTHING!”

Kid disappointed. Her lips shrink, eyes well.

And Banai is a bad person.

They’re standing in a room with two dead bodies—five dead bodies, black-shroud or bleeding bodies.

But they only kill when someone needs them to. When someone tells them to. Makes them.

Why? But something in them reminds them that they don’t need to make sense of things.

“Please don’t kill me, Black.”

This stupid gun isn’t going to kill anyone. If only it could.

Banai chucks the thing onto the ground. It skids between the bunks and stops not far from Gbeho’s toes.

“Thank you. Thank you. You won’t regret this.” She’s crying now. Just a little.

Banai collapses. Their elbows go to their knees, their hands to their forehead. What a stupid wish. To get glasses. Live beside a coffee shop. Or above one. That’s cute. That’d be real cute. Banai has never wanted anything before. They still don’t want anything. Not enough. Just tea and leave them alone. Good little pastries. Butter cookies. Just that same damn apathy.

Green is crawling toward them.

“Don’t touch me.”

“I won’t,” she says. She stops on threes to raise one hand and wipe her eyes, her nose. She sinks into a puddle at their feet and asks, “What now?”

Banai can’t answer that.

“Where do we go?”

Nor that.

“I did this for you.”

'Because you told me to, because space is vast and because I am so lonely and I want more,' but, “You shouldn’t’ve.” Not when you can be content with your damn career, with going places. When you could’ve just let the useless rejects and ne’er-do-wells on this ship float about their business and remain oblivious to the big truths of martyrdom, of aliens, of St. Elmo’s fire. What is wrong with this hotshot kid? And how did she get saddled with MIRA? “You should probably kill me now, Green.”

She’s on her side on the floor. She looks up at them. “No.”

“Fine.”

And they get up and leave her behind and walk in the absolute dark to the blue light of nav. Space is too big for their brain. They’ll figure out how to put the airlock on a time delay later. Right now, they just want to shut down and stop recalibrating.

-

Green is in the copilot’s seat with the little lamp on the dash.

It’s quiet.

Except for the humming, of course.

The immutable fact is that you can fuck up ad nauseum, but the rule is you can’t do it to badly.

“Do you know what the plan is now?” She’s looking into the expanse, probably seeing stars for what they are: the furnaces of solar systems and the promise of destruction and rebirth. Something fancy and college-educated like that.

Banai, as always, just sees the black and nothing. “I don’t know anything.”

“That’s okay.”

It really isn’t.

Banai looks once more at the time. 6:18:49:02. Days lost like this, sleeping and not doing anything about themself. They lay their arm back on the rest. It really is a bit chilly in nav.

“I’m surprised the ship hasn’t fallen to pieces,” they say at last.

“You helped me.”

“ _It_ helped you.”

“Well, it sounds like you when it talks.”

What a horrible piece of information they now have to carry for the last few hours of their life. The lamp is right next to the crossword puzzle that was in here when they moved White’s body out. Banai picks it up. It’s one of the books they were working on while locked in comms.

“Lt. Black.”

“What?”

“If I could be a host for the bacteria, I’d take it from you. I wish I could do something for you, but I’m pretty sure I’d end up like Capt. White.”

“Well, that’s a damn shame.”

There’s just one unfinished puzzle in the book. Five hours until arrival planetside. There’s enough time. Enough for once. They just have to stick with it, not zone out. Finish something, finish themself. Somehow. Airlock, blunt force, OD, scalpel through the jugular. Banai has always been good at violence, even when there’s no paycheck involved. Work should be its own reward, right?

Their eyes can’t focus on the list of clues.

“Lt. Black.”

“ _What_?”

“My uncle’s an optometrist.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and so it ends! i hope i at least kind of stuck the lading haha. and of course, thank you for reading and for comments/kudos :) always appreciated!


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